


Only the Dead

by maggief



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (brief) - Freeform, (recollection), Ableism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Amputee Bucky Barnes, Anxiety, Bucky Barnes Feels, CapBB, Captain America Big Bang 2019 | cabigbang, Depression, Flashbacks, Internalised ableism, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Military Violence, Negative Thoughts, POV Bucky Barnes, Panic Attacks, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Bucky/Brock, Post-Military College!AU, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, mild homophobia, military torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2020-12-31 16:50:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 53,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21149006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggief/pseuds/maggief
Summary: It’s been two years since Bucky was medically discharged from the Army. It’s been two years and three months since he was taken captive as a POW.Will Bucky’s PTSD let him live a normal life? If recovery isn’t linear, what about when it feels like a hurricane, when it chews him up and spits him out without a second glance? Bucky feels like he’s getting the hang of this college thing, but what about the man he keeps running into? Why does he feel a connection to him, when he shouldn’t be thinking about dating, not yet, not this soon?Wherein Bucky learns that some threads never break, and acceptance can be found if you know where to look.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So my CapBB fic is finally here!
> 
> Firstly, I'd like to thank my incredible artist, [BuckyBabyBoy](https://twitter.com/BuckyBabyboy) \- I cannot believe how lucky I am that you chose my fic, and I've loved seeing what you've created from my words.
> 
> Secondly, thanks to Fancy for beta-ing - you are an absolute star! All remaining errors are my own (obviously).
> 
> And finally thanks to the CapBB mods, and everyone in the Discord chat! The CapBB community has been amazingly supportive, and just so wonderful.
> 
> This is a recovery fic, set in 2014, in a post-military!AU world, where Bucky heads to college (he is 30 years old). I know there are some quite heavy tags here, as Bucky works through his trauma and PTSD. Whilst the panic attacks, anxiety, and internalised-ableism are 'live', none of the torture etc is - this is all in the past, although presented through memory and recollection. If you'd like to know more, please drop me an [email](mailto:maggiefrancis87@gmail.com), or a message [over on tumblr](http://iameverywhere.tumblr.com), and take care of yourselves! If there's anything else you feel I should have tagged for - please let me know :)
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> * * *

_ Only the dead have seen the end of war _

— attributed to Plato (perhaps erroneously)

_ BOOM. _

_ The blast reverberates through Bucky’s skull like a ball-bearing, pinging around between his ears until his head is ringing, until the ringing is the only thing he can hear. He’s on the ground with no recollection of how he got there, and when he tries to push himself up his arm won’t work, something’s wrong. Behind him, Reynolds is up on his feet, but he’s the only one. He’s shouting something Bucky can’t hear and still that ringing is pounding in his brain, and it won’t stop— _

Bucky wakes with a start, the flashback lingering even as his brain processes the sound as his alarm. He scrubs a hand roughly over his face, trying to dispel the remains of the nightmare. This is not the day he wanted to wake up like this, not when he’s already got enough nerves about finally starting college, a good ten years older than all the other freshmen.

Bucky isn't nervous though, he tells himself. He doesn't get nervous — he’s tough. He's been to war, been pinned down by insurgents with no hope in hell of rescue, heavy artillery fire coming from both sides in a war that never really had a legitimate purpose, but had a real and bloody end for far too many good soldiers. So he isn’t going to be nervous about some damn students, that’s for sure, not even after his most recurring nightmare.

The nightmare, a flashback really, is one that Bucky relives often. They’d been stuck in the shelled-out ruins of a small village for three days before they found their opening — a gap in the defences of the rebels along a dried-out river bed, a way to escape. The terrain had been soft underfoot, cracked across with old traces of water, but with a slight give to it still, despite being dry. Bouncy. Lake and river beds had been Bucky’s favourite terrain underfoot when they were moving through the landscape, flat and soft but hard enough for a good pace without any issues. He’d always tried to plan their routes through old lakes and rivers, to give their aching feet and knees even the smallest modicum of relief. That day, he’d wished it had been a real rushing torrent — they’d been out of water for nearly twenty four hours at that point. But still, it had seemed too easy, the way out too clear for what had been a complete shit-show up until then. 

Bucky had been on point, leading his squadron to safety out of the valley they were stranded in — there was a rendezvous point around two clicks out where they’d be able to radio in for support from. Their rifles had been trained outwards, constantly scanning the surrounding landscape for signs of the rebels returning after the airstrikes had apparently beaten them back. Attention completely focused outwards, no one had looked at the ground beneath their feet. 

Bucky, out in front alone, got off lightly. Odds are that he had already passed over at least one of the IEDs, but the weight of one lone foot soldier — instead of the humvees they were normally aimed for — hadn't been heavy enough to trigger them. However, his squad marching in formation behind him, heels striking hard, packed sand at the same time? That, that had been enough. 

The rebels hadn't been retreating. They'd been laying a trap. 

Bucky… Bucky doesn’t like to think about what happened next. He tries not to dwell on it as he gets ready for his day, starts the walk to campus, but his mind refuses to listen to him. He’s still not sure how many of his team survived the initial explosion, doesn’t know who was screaming next to him when he blacked out. He only knows that the day the explosion happened was the 5th of April, and by the time special forces liberated him — and only him, the lone survivor of his 10-man squad — well, it was the last week of June. He’d still been in the military hospital out in upstate New York for the 4th of July that year, and had never been more thankful that he missed the firework celebrations. He still has trouble with loud, unexpected noises, but he can just about not panic and drop to the ground when he hears a car backfiring. 

Bucky’s memory of the actual explosion is patchy… He has flashes, but even thinking about them makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, makes his skin cold, and a phantom pain run up his non-existent left arm. He doesn’t like to think about what happened that day, how he let his men down, how they all died because of him and the route he’d led them on. It still felt like a cruel irony that he was the only one who’d survived, that he alone should bear the burden of what went wrong that day. It was only right. He remembers what had happened in the weeks and months afterwards far too well. 

Fuck.

As he makes it to the campus, he resolves not to think about it anymore. The continuing cause of his not-irregular-enough nightmares, and the source of his ever-present PTSD wasn’t perhaps the best topic to get his mind off his first-day-at-college-nerves. It can't be that bad, right?

He shakes his head, his long hair falling in front of his face as he does so, hopefully masking the haunted look in his eyes from all the other students milling around him. He probably needs to make friends with some of these people, will surely at least need the help of a study group at some point. He really can’t afford to alienate them on day one. 

He can already see in his mind the look that Nat would give him if he came back to their flat with the news that he’d had a full-blown freakout in the lobby of the NYU history faculty. She’d laugh, sure, until she realised he wasn’t joking. And then her face would go soft — not pitying, never pitying from Nat — but that look that said she knew, and she, at least, wouldn’t judge him for it.

He kinda wishes Nat was here with him today. But she has a real grown-up job and Bucky is just a washed-up veteran finally deciding to go to college for the first time, once he realised he wasn't qualified for anything else apart from getting shot at. Or shooting at things. He'd been the sharp shooter for his squadron, and often requested by other units for his sniper skills. When he can't sleep at night he tries not to think about how many faceless and nameless targets he's killed. Tries not to and never succeeds. 

He needs to stop thinking about this. 

He's here. He's starting college. History major, he knows that much at the moment but he has no idea what he might minor in. He'll try a few things out probably, see what sticks. In two minutes he will be late for orientation though so he needs to get moving. LH107 which he guesses is a lecture theatre on the ground floor. 103… 104…

He follows in a couple of kids that he swears can't be old enough for college – they look like children. _ Jesus _, he has nothing in common with these kids. It's fine, he tells himself, it'll be fine. He's a hardened war machine, or something like that, he's not scared of a few teenagers. 

He does a weird sort of jig to stop the door catching on his prosthetic arm. He doesn't bother wearing it half the time, doesn't see the point in having an extra bit of plastic stuck to him, but he'd wanted to appear normal; wanted to blend in on his first day at least. He doesn't need any stares. 

He slips into the back row as the professor at the front of the lecture hall is shuffling their notes. About 40 maybe, with greying dark hair; he looks nice. Bucky quickly grabs his laptop out of his backpack and flips it open. The schedule for orientation is up on the screen when it wakes up, and he catches the name Dr Banner just as the professor at the front introduces himself as the same. 

“Morning all. I’m Dr Bruce Banner, please feel free to call me Bruce. I’m the undergraduate faculty advisor for the History department, and I also teach Intro to American History 101, which is compulsory for all history majors. But I’m sure you already know that!”

Banner seems like a nice guy, very affable, and Bucky’s glad. He’d been worried that the head of the department would be some crusty old tweed-wearing bore from New England or somewhere, like a really un-fun version of Giles from Buffy, but Banner seems cool. In fact, Bucky’s certain that he’s nearer in age to Banner (Bruce… call me Bruce) than his fellow students, so he already feels more comfortable about going to him if he ever has any problems. Not that he will… seek help that is. He needs one of those signs they give out when you’re in AA - _ help me if I don’t ask for help _. He hates it even more nowadays, assuming people are pitying him once they see his lack of arm. 

Banner’s introductory spiel has given way to the start of the American History 101 lecture, and he spends the next hour going over the course content, as well as what other courses they are advised — or required — to take.

It’s boring, although admittedly not as boring as sitting in some foxhole for hours on end, with only the desert rats to keep you company. But it’s still pretty dull and Bucky — Bucky loves every minute of it. He’s already thinking about the gift he’s going to buy Nat for convincing him to go back to school, but here, right here, he feels like he’s finally made a good choice in life.

Not that the army was a bad choice. He’d enlisted straight out of school in 2002, a few months after 9/11 and the Iraq war had started. There had been a huge swell of patriotism sweeping the country, and as a physically fit eighteen year-old it had seemed like the best thing that he could do to support his country. As a Brooklyn lad, the fall of the Twin Towers had also hit incredibly close to home, and if going to war meant it could keep his friends and family — his sisters — safe, then that’s what he’d do. 

He’d been smart though. Bucky had always done well in school, and it had upset his mom that he had chosen not to go to college at that point. It’s probably not every mother’s dream to be worried about their son being shot or killed instead of asking about any cute girls they’d met in the library. Not that Bucky would have been meeting girls, but his mom still doesn’t know about that… He suspects Becca does. Becca is his eldest sister and closest confidante after Nat, and he’s pretty sure she can read minds. She hasn’t asked him, and he still doesn’t know how to tell her. After years of living under DADT, the act of hiding that part of himself is truly ingrained second nature, and he still doesn’t know how to change that.

Nat knows, of course. He’s been friends with her since 5th grade, when her family moved over from Russia. The Barnes family were originally from Romania — his grandmother only speaks Romanian, so Bucky’s been speaking it from a young age. And Russian and Romanian were close enough language cousins that he knew enough, at least, to communicate with Nat when she turned up at school, skinny as hell and with the fiercest attitude he’d ever seen, not speaking a word of English. She’d learnt English quickly, but she’d never forgotten the kindness that the ‘weird Barnes kid’ had shown her. He’d thought himself in love with her for a short time when puberty struck, until he realised that what he liked most were the well-defined curves of her muscles, and not her breasts. Muscles that looked even better on the football team. 

He’d never done anything about it when he’d been in school, but Nat had noticed where his eyes strayed. Then, straight into the military, there hadn’t been space for a boyfriend of any kind. He’d done his fair share of bed-hopping when home on leave, but never anyone serious, never for more than one night. College, though, is meant to be a fresh start. It's meant to be a chance for Bucky to be honest for once, to let himself be just himself. Not Sergeant Barnes, not big brother Bucky looking after his younger sisters, and not James Barnes the one-armed veteran. Maybe finally he can just be Bucky again. 

While he’s been lost in his head Banner has concluded his lecture and the students have started to file out again. A blonde girl gives him a strange look as she passes Bucky and he realises he's just been sitting there staring. Great start, Barnes, just sit here like a 30-year-old creep. He's already out of place enough, what with his age and his arm (and his PTSD, a vicious voice in the back of his head helpfully supplies), he doesn't need the other freshman thinking that he's any weirder. 

He follows the last few of the students out, holding the door for Banner behind him before he realises he's walked into a sea of students and for a moment he can't remember how to breathe. There are bodies everywhere, people crammed in too tight and nowhere to leave. He can't see the exits and there's no way out. 

There’s a blackness creeping in around his vision and he can feel both of his palms tingling, itching for the cool grip of a rifle. He doesn't have his helmet on and he doesn't know why, doesn't know why he would have taken it off when they’re out on manoeuvres. 

_ Oh god _. He doesn't. He can't. He needs to get out of here. He knew this was a bad idea, can't believe he ever thought he could hack it at college. He slowly backs up until he's pressed up against the lecture theatre door that he'd exited from only a moment before, and he tries to remember how to breathe. 

He’s not really seeing anything anymore, mind filled with memories of sand and stone. His chest feels tight and he's sure he's going to pass out soon if he doesn't find a way out of here. 

Then suddenly, a pair of strong hands are resting on his shoulders, grounding him to the here and now. It should feel constricting but the hands are warm and firm even on his scarred and ruined shoulder, and he's no longer lost in the Iraqi desert. 

“Hey pal, you’re ok, just breathe.”

Bucky wants to reply but he doesn’t have any words inside him, has only memories of heat and pain, the sharp tang of blood in his nose and mouth. 

The hands are steering him until he's being pushed back into the lecture hall from earlier (and was that really only a few minutes ago? It seems like a lifetime), and then they’re guiding him down onto the floor, back pressed up against the wall and two exits in clear view. Bucky concentrates on the wide open space before him, and the clear routes to the exits, as his vision clears. He focuses on the normalcy of the crappy college desks in front of him, all neatly ordered in row upon row. He thinks about the feel of the rough thin carpet beneath his fingertips — it would be better if it were a nice plush he could sink his fingers into, but at the moment all that matters is that it isn't sand, there are no stones or grains ruining the texture. Just old worn carpet, run thin by thousands of pairs of feet from students throughout the years. 

It's quieter in here too, although Bucky can hear the susurrus of conversation from the swell of students on the other side of the door. Concentrating on that mass of noise makes his heart rate jump up again and he immediately shuts it down. Listens instead to the rough sound of his own breathing, and isn't surprised to find it sounds like he's run a marathon. Fuck. 

He wonders how many people saw him freakout. That's when he remembers that he didn't come into this room alone and he looks up to find a guy who must be about his age taking great care not to stare at Bucky while he pulls himself back together. 

The guy looks… he kind of looks how Bucky feels sometimes and Bucky is instantly sure that he's a vet as well. He looks like he’s not as tall as Bucky, with strong wide shoulders making him look stocky. His hair is a dirty ash blond and his face has deep wrinkles like a pit bull, but he doesn't look angry or aggressive, just like… like life had taken its toll on this guy, in one way or another. 

Bucky tries to speak, to get the guy’s attention, but nothing comes out except a harsh puff of air. He's clearing his throat to try again when the guy looks up at the sound. 

“Hey,” his voice is soft, far softer than Bucky might have expected, and his eyes crinkle up into a smile, “how you doing?”

It should be patronising, should set Bucky's hackles rising, that this complete stranger is babying him. But if he's learnt one thing from being spit out on the wrong side of war, it's that people don't have to be kind; kindness is always, always a gift, not an insult. 

“Yeah,” Bucky clears his throat again, his voice sounding thick and scratchy like it really had been filled with sand. “I'm … good. Sorry.” He reaches up to rub his hand across the back of his neck, a sliver of embarrassment creeping in now that his flashback is subsiding. 

“Thanks…thanks for your help.” He can't quite bring himself to meet this other guy's eyes, worried about the judgement he'll find there. 

“Don't worry about it. You looked like you needed an escape.”

They don't quite stare at each other in silence for a few moments before the guy speaks again. 

“Clint Barton, infantry medic, 501st, retired.”

A weight lifts off Bucky's shoulders that he hadn't even realised was still there. This guy is a vet like he'd expected and Bucky knows that means this guy gets it, that there won't be any judgement on his behalf. 

“Buck—James Barnes, 107th, retired as well. Freshman history major, my friends call me Bucky.” He notices that Barton hasn't reached out his hand for Bucky to shake, understands that it's not because he's being rude or dismissive, but that he's not forcing Bucky to reach out and touch him if he doesn't want to. The last piece of anxiety that had been clamped around his chest unfurls at this; Barton gets it, he's safe here. 

He reaches up his right hand for Barton to shake, and the other man reaches out with another one of those crinkled smiles. 

“Nice to meet you, Bucky.”

“Yeah, you too.” The hand, on the back of his neck again once Clint lets go. “Thanks for that.”

“Seriously, it was no problem, it looked like you needed it. First day?” Barton’s expression is wide open and accepting, and god, Bucky couldn’t be more thankful right now.

“First day. I wasn’t expecting—“ Bucky trails off, unable to articulate quite what he was or wasn’t expecting. The crowds? The noise? How it would take his mind back immediately to the war like he’d never left? He’d been out two years, he really hadn’t expected to have an episode like that on a college campus.

They tell you that PTSD never leaves you, that it’s always a part of you. The strategies they teach you to employ, they’re not about a cure, or getting rid of it. PTSD becomes a part of you just like the blood in your veins, your bones, skin and sinew. It’s about learning how to cope with this new part of you, learning how to accept it and manage yourself around it. So you can live a normal life, so you don’t have to feel your vision blacking out in a crowded place. For some, that means avoiding crowds, or having a service animal that can help them navigate those situations which might trigger them, for others it becomes easier, normal, natural. To be in a crowded place and not been scanning for concealed weapons or suicide bombers, not to be constantly scanning for threats and escape routes.

Bucky knows he’s not there yet, knows he’s not comfortable having his back to the door, or when he can’t see people’s faces — he’d absolutely hated Halloween last year, people all around him in masks and costumes, and he doesn’t think he’ll fare any better this year. But normal, everyday situations, he’s been fine with, that’s one of the reasons why he’d decided to enroll in college, why he’d thought he’d be able to cope with it. To react like this on day one is a huge blow to his confidence, and he just wants to head straight home, back to the crappy flat he shares with Nat and hide in his bed until he’s not damaged anymore, until he’s not a traumatised vet who doesn’t know how to act around normal people.

That's not possible though. The cruel thing about PTSD is that it’ll be with him for the rest of his life. It's never not with you, you just get better at managing it. The carefree Bucky who existed as a teenager died in some godforsaken corner of the Middle East and he's never coming back. 

Barton had sat down next to him on the floor whilst Bucky had been lost in his head again. On his right side, so he's not pressing against the prosthesis, not making Bucky hyper aware of what he's missing. It makes Bucky feel like he’s back with his unit, back with the men he lost, where they always understood each other without having to say anything.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I was a huge mess the first couple of years. How long have you been out?”

“Two years.” Bucky winces slightly as he answers, aware that he should have his shit together more by this point.

“Ah.” But Barton’s tone isn’t judging even now. “I’m guessing you didn’t think the crowds would get to you anymore? I know that feeling, man.”

Bucky’s internal cringing subsides even more. “Yeah, I just thought… I’d been doing well.”

“That’s the real bitch, isn’t it? Two steps forward, one step back.” Bucky just nods in reply, not willing to delve too much further into his battered psyche right now. “You got another class now? Or do you wanna go grab a coffee?”

Bucky doesn’t have anything else until the afternoon — his World War I lecture — although a whole module focused on one of the bloodiest and most brutal combats in history seems like a really fucking bad idea right now. 

“Coffee sounds great, lead the way.” He pushes himself up off the floor, and extends his good hand back to help Barton up. He thinks he might have just made a friend.

* * *

Barton takes him to an off-campus coffee shop — _ don’t bother with the department canteen unless you’re truly desperate. That stuff’s worse than army swill _— where he buys him a coffee. Once they’re sat down at a small table near the back (exits: two), Bucky spies a wedding ring on Barton’s left hand, so he’s pretty sure he hasn’t inadvertently found himself on a date on his very first day. He had promised himself — and an ever-perceptive Nat — that he would be more open about himself, it’s all part of the new James Barnes, but accidentally outing himself by ending up on a date with someone he just wants to make friends with would be truly disastrous. 

He lifts up the coffee to take an experimental sip, and realises that it’s pretty good. The warm liquid immediately seems to seep down inside of him to where he had been cold, too cold inside, memories lingering of a past he doesn’t want to remember.

“Thanks for this, and earlier.”

Barton’s smile is small, but no less genuine. “Hey man, forget about it. I get it, really.”

Bucky can see him eyeing up the stiff and lifeless prosthesis in his left sleeve and finds that he doesn’t mind so much.

“You can ask,” he says quietly, eyebrows quirking at Barton.

It’s not something he normally offers up easily, or at all, but he finds that it feels normal here. God, he doesn’t think he’s ever realised how much he missed being part of a unit until right this moment. He tries not to think about the men — about the brothers — that he lost that day, but he wonders right now how much easier the transition between _ there _ and _ home _ would have been with the rest of the 107th at his side.

“Iraq? Afghanistan?”

“Both. Six tours, ten years. I’d been thinking about getting out, but didn’t have a clue what I’d do. And then, this happened in Afghanistan, kind of made up my mind for me. IED. Lost my whole squad.” Bucky doesn’t mention that he hadn’t lost them all in the explosion, knows from debriefing that some of their bodies had been recovered from the compound he was being held in. That information, that belongs to him and his guilt, and no one else. He sees someone, had been a requirement upon his (honorable) discharge, an army sanctioned therapist. But it’ll be fucking decades before he’s sorted through all his baggage. Honestly, he’s just happy right now that he can function enough to be out in public, that’s more than he’d thought could be possible at one time. 

Thankfully, Barton doesn’t press the issue at all, and even though Bucky’s only just met the guy, he can’t say he’s surprised. 

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Barton doesn’t offer anything more complicated than that but Bucky knows — he understands in the way that only someone who’s experienced the same can. Luckily, Barton doesn’t let either of them dwell on it though.

“So history major? What made you pick that?”

“I don’t know. I’d always been interested in history at school, and then after I came home, I had a lot of time to read books. But, all the fiction books, all those happy endings seemed so fake. The history books, they at least seemed real to me.”

He takes another sip of coffee. Those are the same words he wrote in his admissions essay, although they’d been slightly more eloquently put, but it’s true. He couldn’t get into fiction once he’d seen the very worst that humanity had to offer, it had all felt so fake and empty. History at least was real, and Bucky needed reality more than ever since coming home, far too often getting trapped within his own memories and nightmares. He still reads science fiction, though. Pulpy, trashy, outlandish science fiction, where the aliens have green skin, and it’s so far removed from his reality it takes him to other places, other worlds. 

“What about you?” he asks Barton, wondering if he’s a history major too.

“Med School, third year. But someone had recommended Banner’s graduate class on the history of medicine and I was trying to catch him earlier — you’d just come out of his 101 class, right?”

The third year of medical school at least explains why Barton is closer to Bucky’s own age than his fellow freshmen, especially since he must have done at least a few years in the army as well.

“Yeah, although 101 seems pretty basic. Easy credits though, I guess.” Bucky offers a little shrug, as if to say, hey, taking something easy wouldn’t be a bad idea for once.

Barton offers a small chuckle. “Yeah, most of the 101 courses are nice enough, enjoy it while you can!”

They end up chatting for over an hour in the back of that coffee shop, and Bucky knows by the end of it that he’s made a new friend. On his first day! Nat would be so proud of him. Barton tells him where the good coffee is on campus, and where the quietest spots to study are. Tells Bucky about his wife and kids, and how he'd got out for them — couldn't bear the idea of his kids growing up without a father like he had done. He also asks Bucky if he’s planning on going to the local VA meetings or does he have a group back home…?

Bucky doesn't live in Brooklyn any more, doesn't live near his ma or sisters. The apartment he shares with Natasha is only five blocks from the part of the NYU campus where the history faculty is based. But he also hasn't been to a VA meeting since his very first one, two weeks out of hospital and already going crazy under his mom’s too-attentive care. She’d only meant well, he knows, and he loves her for that. But it had been so stifling. And a VA meeting had been a Valid Excuse to leave the house that not even his mom could argue with. But sitting there, surrounded by other vets who had lost friends and squad mates about there, Bucky had felt like a fraud. He'd been responsible for the death of his whole unit, who was he to sit here and gain sympathy for his loss? What about their loss? What did they deserve? 

He'd barely made it through the meeting before bolting outside and vomiting in a side alley. He'd crouched there against the stained brick wall and cried great heaving sobs, lungs desperate for air as he cried and cried and cried. And then he'd wiped his face and walked home, told his mom he was moving out and within a week he was living with Nat. He'd never gone back to the Brooklyn VA support group. 

He's self aware enough that he knows it's unhealthy, has admitted as much to his therapist, who he still sees once a week. She's stopped asking him if he's ever going back, stopped expecting a change. But Bucky wants to, he wants to feel good enough that he could be a part of the support, to be able to talk to people who understand, who won't judge. He wants that, he’s just still not sure he can allow himself that mercy yet. 

But there was Barton telling him about the group that meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays on the NYU campus. That there are a surprising amount of vets studying here, all looking to be a part of something different, something kinder.

He’d given Barton a non-answer about the VA, but it’s been gnawing at him since. The idea had tickled at the back of his mind as he sat through the introduction for the WWI course. Thankfully, the time spent talking with Barton had resettled his mind somewhat, and since the lecture today was mostly only the course outline, as well as starting to cover the political situation in Europe that had led to the start of the war, there was nothing that reignited Bucky’s memories.

At the end of the lecture, he swings his backpack over his right shoulder and heads towards the front of the room whilst the professor — a Dr. Carter — is still packing up her things. 

“Excuse me, Dr. Carter?” Bucky guesses she’s easily in her sixties, but from their class today he could already tell that she was sharp as a tack, and incredibly smart. He knew he’d have to be honest, that she’d see through some bullshit excuse straight away.

Dr. Carter looks up questioningly before Bucky continues. “Hi, my name's James Barnes, I'm a freshman history major. I just wanted to talk to you about your class…” He trails off, unsure of how to phrase his request. 

Dr. Carter just looks at him patiently. “Yes?”

“I'm an army vet and I just… I just wanted to make you aware that I might need to leave the class sometimes. I mean, I'll try not to, I don't want to, but sometimes…”

Dr. Carter takes pity on his rambling. “That's okay James, don’t worry about it. You do what you need to and let me know if there's any way I can help, if you need transcriptions of anything you have to miss.”

Once again, Bucky is surprised and relieved at the kindness of practical strangers. “That’s great, thank you. I’m really excited to take this course, so I’m hoping there won’t be any problems.”

“I hope so too, James,” Dr. Carter responds in a quiet voice, a small smile on her lips. “It was nice to meet you.”

“You too, thanks.” 

Bucky’s not entirely sure he’s worth this kindness, but right now, he’s going to be selfish and take it.

He goes for a bit of a wander around the campus after that, and although he tells himself it’s just so he can get a feel for things when he not rushing around looking for a class, there’s a small voice at the back of his head that won’t go away. _ Do you plan on going to the local VA meetings here? We have a group that meets on campus… _ Barton’s voice is echoing through his head, and he’s not going, he’s definitely not going. He hasn’t been to a VA meeting in two years, he’s definitely not about to start going here, on campus, where he’s meant to be making normal friends and putting all that behind him.

His fingers, though, his fingers aren’t listening to him. Because somehow his phone is in his hand, and he’s pressing down for Siri even as he tells himself that he’s still not going.

“Siri. Where are the VA meetings on the NYU campus?”

It’s a bitch to type with only one hand, especially when you’re standing outside trying to look like you know exactly what you’re doing. 

His phone flashes up with the answer in seconds, and shows him how far away it is. It’s in a different building to the history faculty, but it’s not far. No more than a five minute walk away. Bucky looks up from his phone to his surroundings, getting his bearings for which direction he needs to head. If he goes left, it’s a short walk to his apartment… If he goes right…

He goes right. He thinks about how easy it had felt talking to Barton earlier, how it had felt like the camaraderie he’d had overseas. He thinks about how there are some things these teenagers will never understand about him and the things he’s experienced. Bucky doesn’t want them to either, doesn’t want anybody else to be burdened with this weight, this fear, this guilt, this anxiety. But he does wish sometimes to be understood, and maybe it’s time to find that again.

He can check it out at least, see if it’s worth going to again. It is turns out to be a disaster, well, it’s still only his first day. 

He stops off to get another coffee — it’s been a stressful day and the first day excitement is starting to droop into weariness. For someone who used to get by on four hours of sleep a night or less, he’s pretty embarrassed, but maybe that’s a sign of the times too. He no longer needs to function solely on adrenaline and coffee, he’s allowed to establish a sleep pattern like a normal person, sleep in a soft bed with pillows and a warm blanket. That had taken some getting used to at first. He’d gotten used to sleeping pretty much anywhere, anytime, and to come back to New York and have to sleep in a bed? It had felt wrong, and his body hadn’t known what to do with it. Hadn’t known how to cope with the absence of pain, and discomfort, and full-body weariness that was all part of being at war. 

He’s used to it now. He’s perfectly happy hibernating in his bed for hour upon hour, only emerging to use the bathroom or eat cold pizza from the fridge. That’s probably just as unhealthy as not sleeping, but he’s trying. Sometimes… sometimes it’s just not safe for him to be out in the world, when he’s scared of what he might do to himself, or other people. At times like that, the safest thing to do is just to go to sleep, to hide away until he feels like he’s in control of his own mind again, like he knows who he is and his place in the world. 

There had been days when he’d first come back that he’d supplemented those days with cheap bottles of whiskey, of vodka, of gin, of rum. Whatever was on hand and would get him drunk the fastest. Whatever would get him drunk enough that he wouldn’t remember that he was incomplete, that he was missing his arm, and half his mind sometimes too. 

That had been a dark time. Those first few months when he got back, when neither his body nor his mind knew how to adjust to being Bucky Barnes the amputee, Bucky Barnes the vet, Bucky Barnes the murderer, the blood of all his unit on his hands. He knew how to be Sergeant Barnes, knew how to be a member of the 107th, knew how to be their sharp shooter, but he didn’t know how to be this new Bucky, this half man, this wasted man. 

He thinks maybe, maybe he’d still be drunk right now if it hadn’t been for Nat. She’d found him a job, had poured all the alcohol out of their apartment, and kept doing the same over and over again whenever Bucky bought any more. She poured it out faster than he could buy it, faster than he could drink and she read him the riot act. It worked a lot better than sympathy, a lot better than a soft touch and pitying looks. He didn’t deserve sympathy, but orders, he could follow those. 

He thinks that maybe the suggestion from Barton was an order in a different sense. A command that maybe it’s ok to let himself interact with service personnel again, to let himself be a part of a crowd he’s been denying himself access to, feeling unworthy of their support. He’s fully aware of the unhealthiness of his thoughts, but the guilt sits heavy inside him every single day, along with the knowledge of what happened to his team, and the screams of those who had been imprisoned and tortured alongside him. Their blood is a part of his consciousness, their lives his responsibility, and he’s the one who let them die. There are things he could have done differently, things he should have done to ensure their safety more — he should have known it was a trap, should have spotted the IEDs beneath their feet. They trusted him, and he got them all killed; that’s why he can’t forgive himself.

He might just be able to reach out, put that guilt into a context where other army personnel can understand it. He’s not looking for forgiveness, but he’d take acceptance. He’d take pretty much anything that would help him sleep at night, that could help wash the stain of this blood from his hands.

He realises those hands are shaking as he reaches up to open the door to the building. Even his left hand, made of flesh-colored plastic, dead and lifeless in his sleeve, is trembling with the shakes that are wracking his whole body. God, he would kill for a cigarette right about now, but he’d given those up along with the booze, given up the things that would slowly kill him without his consent. 

He sucks in a deep breath and heads inside. At the very least Barton will be there so it won't be a room completely full of strangers. 

The room inside is set up into rows of chairs rather than the circle he was expecting, like at AA meetings. He'd also tried one of those once, when Nat had finally succeeded in clearing all the alcohol out of their apartment, and he was left facing a future where he couldn’t numb reality with drink. He’d gone, shaking, face pale and sweaty, to his local AA meeting, and sat there in a circle looking at his future. He’d eaten a stale donut and listened to these strangers tell stories about how they’d ruined their lives over and over again. How they’d driven away their loved ones, and burnt every good thing in their lives into the ground.

The next morning he craved a drink more than he craved oxygen, but all he could see were those pale and shaking faces, old and sad, alone. And he couldn’t do it. He even went to the liquor store and bought a large bottle, was on his bed, bottle raised to his lips but he couldn’t take a sip. He’d wanted to, so so badly, but those faces gnawed at him and he’d walked to the kitchen on shaking legs and poured the entire bottle straight down the sink. He’d been sick as a dog for days from withdrawal, vomiting constantly despite not eating, just throwing up lurid green bile and choking on air. He’d sweated through every t-shirt he owned until the shakes and the sweats had subsided, until he’d been able to look outside the window without the daylight burning his eyes. Then he’d turned to Nat and swore to her — _ never again, not a drop — _ and he hadn’t, ever since. It hadn’t been easy, but in the end, it had been simple.

He knows, he knows he’s fucking lucky. People lose their lives to alcohol, in sucks them back in time and time again, and the PTSD makes it feel like a comfort, like a friend, something that they choose rather than an ever-deepening hole that’s spinning out of control. Bucky wants a drink every single damn day of his life, wants to feel that blissful ignorance that only comes with being so blindingly drunk you can’t remember your own name. He wants to forget everyone and everything, stop thinking about how he got his whole team killed and yet he’s still here to tell the tale. He wants to say he doesn’t drink to preserve their memory, but it’s not true. He wants to drink because he’s weak, but he doesn’t because he doesn’t deserve the blissful stupor of intoxication. He deserves to remember.

There are a few people dotted around the room, some milling near the coffee urn set up on a table along the wall, and the rest already seated in the ten or so rows set up. He takes a seat near the back, cap pulled down low over his face. He’s not sure he wants to talk to anyone, not even sure anymore he wants Barton to realise he’s here when he arrives. He feels fucking sick, he doesn’t deserve to be here. The dog tags he still wears feel hot against his chest like a brand that’s being burned into his skin.

He can’t do this.

He gets up and starts to make his way back towards the door, when two people walk through. It’s Barton and a dark-skinned man who looks to be around the same age. The two are talking animatedly, conversation flowing easily between them like they’re fully functioning adults who know how to navigate the world. Unlike Bucky.

Bucky swerves towards the coffee instead of heading to the exit like he’d been planning. _ Shit shit shit _. Too late to leave now. Barton spots him, and walks over with a bright, “Bucky!”

“Hey Barton.” Bucky’s voice is quiet but he’s just glad it doesn’t waver.

“I’m glad you could make it. Wasn’t sure we’d see you here.” Barton looks like he wants to clap Bucky on the shoulder and then thinks better of it. He’s glad. Bucky’s not sure he can deal with physical contact right now. His nerves are feeling frayed like old wire, and he’s scared he might lash out if someone comes too close. He’s not sure he can trust himself, it was a bad idea to come here. 

“Wasn’t sure I’d be here either,” Bucky replies honestly. 

Barton doesn’t comment any further and instead introduces him to the man he’d walked in with.

“Bucky, I’d like you to meet Sam Wilson, who’s the lead of the meetings here. Sam, this is Bucky, the vet I was just telling you about.”

Bucky bristles at that slightly, wondering what Barton might have told this man about him. Did he tell him he was having an episode in the corridor? Did he tell him he couldn’t even get through one day as a normal person before having to retreat and hide?

“Bucky, nice to meet you.” Wilson’s voice is soft but firm, and god damn he is attractive when he smiles. A set of perfect teeth shine out at Bucky underneath a neat and tidy moustache and beard. He also doesn’t extend a hand for Bucky to shake, and he could really get used to this level of consideration. “Freshman history major, right? Barton was just telling me that he met another vet this morning?”

Wilson’s face is completely guileless as he questions Bucky, and the tightness that had stretched across his shoulders at the introduction relaxes infinitesimally; it didn’t seem like Barton had told Wilson any more than the bare facts about Bucky.

“That’s right. 107th infantry, Sergeant James Barnes. But my friends call me Bucky.” At this he does offer a hand out to Wilson, but loosely, showing that he won’t be offended if Wilson rejects him. Bucky doesn’t think he will, but he’s seen the skittish vet-type before, those who can’t go in for a handshake without worrying that there’s a suicide bomber hiding behind the friendly gesture, waiting to grab you and draw you in close. Or those, like Bucky himself, who hasn’t allowed himself to get near another human being physically since he was discharged, who can’t bear the thought of someone he doesn’t know touching him, touching this body that even now he’s not fully in control of, because sometimes the PTSD is in control, and he never knows when that might be. The best he can do is keep himself isolated and keep to himself. At least then, he’s the only one he can harm when things run out of control. 

Sam Wilson shakes his hand like it’s no big deal, and doesn’t spare Bucky’s prothesis more than a passing glance. It feels good, to be around people who intrinsically understand all the things that Bucky doesn’t even know how to start explaining. It feels good.

A few more people file in and Sam tells them to take a seat as they are about to start. Bucky shuffles back into the row he'd just come out of, Barton following him but leaving a gap between them when they sit down. 

Sam, meanwhile, has walked up to the front of the room where there is a small table which he steps in front of and then immediately leans back against. The posture is so distinctly un-military that it jars Bucky momentarily, and it takes him a second to remember that he doesn't have to be here. This isn't mandated and it isn't compulsory. He's here by choice, he's not in the army any more — his life is his own to do with as he pleases. 

“Good evening everyone, and welcome to tonight's VA meeting. For those of you who are new, I'm Sam Wilson. I was a pararescue, two tours. I'm now studying for my PhD in aeronautical engineering at NYU. We invite everyone to share whatever they feel comfortable talking about, but it's also okay not to share. We don't require you to speak here, it's okay just to listen.” He looks around the room. “Who would like to go first?”

There's a brief silence that seems to ripple round the room as if everyone is expecting the person next to them to speak up. Then a woman in the front row stands up. 

“Evelyn, go ahead,” Sam says with a smile, and the woman starts to speak. 

“Hi, I'm Evelyn, two tours, engineers. I lost my husband in ‘07 to an IED — he was infantry. Yesterday, my girlfriend proposed to me and…”

Bucky looks up at the word girlfriend. Obviously he's aware that there must be queer people in the army, but for most of the time he was enlisted it was such a taboo topic — it would get you discharged if you were found out. It's remarkably refreshing to hear Evelyn speak so openly to a group of strangers, albeit strangers with a shared commonality. 

“I just … I'm so happy but I'm still filled with this guilt. Like, how dare I be happy when Aaron’s dead? I promised to be his wife for the rest of our lives, and I guess I'm struggling with the fact that I get a second chance and he doesn't. He doesn't get anything. They took that away from him.”

Bucky is staring very hard at his remaining hand as she finishes speaking, furiously trying to blink back the tears that have formed in his eyes. The war took a lot away from everyone, but this woman, she’s clawed something back, or found something new. She’s allowed herself to live, in a way that Bucky hasn’t been able to, hasn’t allowed himself. He wonders… The degree, being here at NYU, is the first step that he’s allowed himself to take, but maybe? He doesn’t know. What is it that they say about alcoholics? First, you buy a plant, and if the plant survives, you can buy a pet. And, if after that, both pet and plant are alive, you can think about adult, human relationships. Bucky doesn’t own a plant, or a pet. Can he really be thinking about looking for a relationship? He wouldn’t have to hide it anymore, he’s no longer in the military, and DADT has been repealed anyway, even if he was. But he’s never even been in a real adult relationship before, he doesn’t know how to do that. 

Maybe it’s time to find out. 

By the time he starts paying attention to the room again, Sam is thanking Evelyn for sharing, and talking about how the burden of loss can often be a part of them that never goes away. They carry it along with the guilt of surviving when many others — more deserving, or less so, there is often no way to judge — came home in body bags. Or not at all, their bodies lost in explosions, or under enemy capture. Bucky knows that, surprisingly, the bodies of all his team were recovered, thrown into a mass grave that had been left open as they died one after the other — even those who had died in the original IED explosion, their bodies had been recovered by the enemy, presumably as a way of covering their tracks, leaving no evidence behind that a targeted explosion had gone off.

The grave had only been waiting for his own body when Special Forces had finally located the compound and freed him. Sometimes his nightmares involve him lying in that grave, the bodies of his team crushing him and suffocating him until he wakes gasping into the night, tears and sweat intermingling on the sheets. 

A couple more people share their own thoughts or stories, but Bucky’s hardly listening to them. He’s gone too far into his own memories, mind more on the past than in the present.

He says an absent goodbye to both Wilson and Barton on his way out, walks the long way home to clear his head. It’s still summer in New York and the evening is sticky with the promise of rain. Bucky lingers in the hope that the storm will break while he’s still out in it, but nothing comes. After so many months spent in the barren desert of the Middle East, the touch of rain on his skin is something that Bucky treasures, something he craves. It reminds him of the simple pleasures in life, that they haven’t all been lost or denied to him. This thing, at least, he can enjoy. He likes to throw on his battered sneakers and head out into the rain, especially when it’s really pouring down. A heavy downpour means that the people who find themselves stuck in it are no longer looking around at the world. Their heads are looking down at the pavement, eyes turned away from the rain falling from the sky, or else hidden under the protective shelter of an umbrella. It means no one’s looking at Bucky’s slightly lopsided gait as his body struggles to compensate for his missing arm — the weight and balance of his uneven body throwing him off, even after two years of being like this.

He supposes that he went nearly 28 years with two arms, so maybe it will take him another 28 to get used to only having one. To not wake up sometimes still and try to turn his alarm off with a hand that isn’t there anymore, scratch his nose, pull the covers up over his head so he can pretend the world outside doesn’t exist, that he doesn’t exist. 

He shakes these thoughts out of his head as he takes the stairs up to their apartment two at a time. The lift hasn’t worked in months, but Bucky finds he doesn’t mind so much any more. Back when he’d first moved in here with Nat, back when he’d still been far too self-conscious to attempt running outside, the flights of stairs up to the sixth floor had been the only exercise he got. Until he discovered the sanctuary of running in the rain, the privacy it offered him. Now, the stairs are still useful exercise every day, but he no longer finds himself struggling for breath once he gets to their front door. It feels good though, to get his blood pumping round his body, and sometimes he races up the stairs like he’s five years old again and he’s got the newest comic book from the store. It reminds him of who he was before the war, before the explosion, and the loss, the grief and the disability he now carries with him everywhere he goes.

He hasn’t even got his key into the lock when they door swings open before him, revealing an angry looking Natasha Romanoff. 

“Where have you been? Your class finished ages ago.” There’s a fire in her eyes which reminds Bucky of the Natasha who poured all the alcohol out of their flat, the Natasha who used to pick fights with the school bullies so they wouldn’t pick on the other kids.

Bucky feels another flash of hot guilt course through him for not letting Nat know that he would be home late. He hadn’t thought about it at all, had only been thinking about himself, and whether he could face going to the VA meeting, if he could face being in the same room as other vets.

“Shit Nat, I’m sorry,” he replies as she hauls him into the apartment to give him a once over.

Once she’s satisfied he’s okay, her glare flattens into a frown. “Where were you, and why didn’t you call?”

She sounds like nothing less than Bucky’s own ma in this moment, and he has to try hard to bite back a smile. He loves Nat, he really really loves her, and he’s so glad she cares about him.

“Nat, I love you.”

Her frown softens into a smile, “I love you too, you great dork. Are you okay?”

He feels bad for making her worry, and promises himself he won’t do that to her again. It had been his first day on the NYU campus, _ of course _ she was going to be worried about him and how he’d fared. He should have texted her, at the very least.

“Yeah, I’m good. I’m sorry. I actually went to a VA meeting on campus.”

Her eyes widen at that admission, since she’s fully aware that he has been to exactly one VA meeting before in his entire life, and that he’d sworn off them for good ever since. 

“You did what?” She hustles him to to the couch, and sits down next to him, curling her feet up under herself. She taps on her phone for a few seconds, “Pizza’s ordered, now spill”. 

Bucky opens and closes his mouth a few times before he answers. Sometimes he forgets how efficient Nat can be when she’s on a mission. 

“I went to the campus VA meeting. I met a vet earlier in the day and he mentioned it, and I just. Found myself there. It actually wasn't bad.” He gives a small shrug and a smile as if to say, what can you do? 

“So you went to this VA meeting for this vet? Was he cute?”

“No!” Bucky response is loud and immediate. “Not like that. I had a bit of a freak out in the corridor after my first class. Too many people, too much noise, and he just appeared out of nowhere. Got me somewhere quiet. Sat with me for a minute. It felt good to talk to someone who understood without me having to say anything. It stuck in my mind, that it was maybe what I'd find at the VA…”

Nat’s looking at him with a shrewd look in her eye as if she still doesn't believe there isn't some ulterior motive here. 

“I swear, that’s it. The vet — Clint — he’s married, it wasn’t like that. He’s kind of gnarly looking. You’d like him though.” Bucky’s voice is earnest as he explains to Nat, and he’s honestly not sure he’s felt this optimistic in a long time. 

Yes, this morning in the corridor had been hellish, but he hadn’t vomited, he hadn’t blacked out or hurt anyone. No one had even really seen him, apart from Barton, and he hadn’t judged him in the slightest. Dr. Banner had seemed chill, and Dr. Carter had already impressed him. For a moment he doesn’t recognise the swelling feeling in his chest, but then he realises. It’s hope. It might even be happiness. He leans into Nat slightly as he lets the feeling encompass him. He can do this, and it feels good, it feels right. 

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for panic attacks and description of torture. Like, there's some fucked up shit in here.

* * *

Bucky’s new-found hope continues to sit tucked-in tightly against his chest for the next few weeks as he settles into the routine of going to class. He’d thought about getting a job on campus — being a barista would be okay, or working in the campus bookshop would be pretty cool – but he’s not quite sure he’s ready for something like that. He still needs to know that he can leave somewhere if he needs to, that he’s not tied in by an employee contract. More often than not he still sleeps with the door open, after one time too many waking up after a nightmare of being back in captivity, the closed door at the foot of the bed the only thing he could see, and he’d have to get up immediately, check that the door wasn’t locked, that he was allowed to leave. Sometimes he’d have to walk all the way outside and onto the street, breathe the fresh air (and the New York fumes) in order for his brain to really process that he wasn’t still trapped in that dirty, cramped cell. 

He’d been with Nat for two months before she caught him coming back in from outside in just his pyjama pants. She’d thought he’d been sleepwalking at first, and he’d been too ashamed to admit the real reason he’d been outside. He’d kept up the lies for another week, before he came clean when Nat tried to ‘wake him’ next time it happened. He told Nat the truth then, admitting that sometimes he just had to know he could walk out without anyone stopping him, and having her stop him to interrogate him, or prevent him from leaving was freaking him out. Her mouth had crumpled at that admission, a soft quirk of her lips downwards that you wouldn’t even notice if you weren’t looking for it. He knows that look well by now, the _ oh, my heart just broke for you _look. He wonders how Nat has any heart left for him to break, wonders why he’s worth it.

Maybe Bucky had started to feel comfortable, too arrogant, because it had seemed like any other day when his PTSD knocks his confidence right out of him again. He’s had a few nightmares since the start of term, but he’s been trying to run more now that the nights are getting darker and there’s no one around to stare; the increase in activity has been helping him sleep. Mostly his night terrors have just been his standard dream where he feels trapped, confined, chest being pressed with a weight he can’t move. He wakes up with his heart racing, struggling to remember that he can breathe, that he’s safe, that it’s okay. After their sleepwalking confrontation, Nat had somehow sourced a key to the roof for Bucky, and now he heads up there when he needs to — the wide open sky above doing wonders for Bucky’s anxiety, more so than the cramped streets of NYC below could ever do. But he hasn’t been having some of his worst nightmares, the ones where they shock him with electricity, until it feels like his teeth are going to vibrate right out of his skull, that he’s going to fall apart with the force of the shaking. He hasn’t dreamt about the waterboarding since the 4th July. The fireworks this year had been thunderous in Bucky’s ears, and his normal solitude of the roof had provided no escape from them. The sounds had bled into his dreams, becoming the explosions of IEDs, and the screams of his team all around him. They’d become the sound of Bucky’s own deafening heartbeat in his ears, the only thing he could hear beyond the rush of the water over his face and around his ears. 

Bucky hasn’t had a shower since he returned. 

In a bath, he can control the level of the water, doesn’t have to let it run over his face, his eyes, his mouth, if he doesn’t want to. Can bathe in two inches of water if he really wants to. In a shower the water rushes straight down, over his mouth, his nose, his eyes. Just thinking about it makes Bucky’s blood run cold, makes his heartbeat _ thrumthrumthrum _in his ears. It’s probably strange that he likes rain so much, but rain, rain is wild, rain is free, he can spread his arm out wide, and feel the rain on every inch of him, each drop a separate pinprick moment, not the constant stream of a shower. He can run through the rain and know that he’s free — the rain belongs to nature, not to man. A shower though, being trapped in a small space with the water pounding down on him, no, Bucky can’t do that. 

He hasn’t had those dreams in months, and maybe it had made him cocky, maybe it had made him believe they weren’t coming back. Maybe it made him believe that he was getting better, that he deserved to get better. He’s been going to the VA meetings twice a week, been hanging out with Clint — he’s met his wife, been round to their house for dinner, and met his kids, and god it feels good to be a part of someone’s life. He has Nat, and Becca, the rest of his family, he knows, but he’s always had them. It feels good to have someone who didn’t know the old Bucky, who doesn’t know what they’re missing out on with this watered-down version. With this careful and cautious Bucky who only has one arm and can’t walk through a crowd without his heart rate spiking. He’s exchanged pleasantries with Wilson a few times, especially at the VA meetings, and he’s made friends with a girl on his course — another history major called Darcy. They’d been paired up on a presentation together in their second week, but Darcy had just been so forward, her personality so full of I-won’t-take-your-shit brightness that Bucky had been powerless to ignore her. She was a few years older than the other freshman as well, although younger than Bucky, and he could sense that there was something in her past that had caused her to miss going to college as a teenager. He hadn’t asked her about it, it was none of his business, and if she wanted him to know, she’d tell him eventually. Darcy reminds him of Nat in many ways, that she has this way of getting on with life no matter what shit is thrown her way. Bucky’s envious of that sometimes, although he wonders what it says about him, that he lets women get close, but not men. 

He’s not even in his WWI class when it happens. For his minor he’s taking some politics modules, including one on international relations. The course is run by a hard-ball German lecturer called Professor Zola, but he’s been fair so far, and Bucky appreciates a marking system where everyone is equally hated — at least you can’t curry favour to get better marks. Today’s lecture is covering political relationships between countries at war, and unsurprisingly, there have been a few references to torture so far, including activities at the infamous Guantanamo Bay. However, there hasn’t been anything graphic so far, and the detached, intellectual way the topic is being covered means that it isn’t overly difficult for Bucky. He’s uncomfortable, sure, but he’s not about to have a flashback. He can do this. And then, without warning, Professor Zola brings up a video. 

“Take a look at this.” 

There's no other comment, no indication of what the video is about and then it jumps straight into footage of someone being waterboarded. On the screen there's a man being held down in a chair by men on either side, who are also holding a large cloth over his nose and mouth. There's another man standing behind them who is steadily pouring a bucket of water down from above. The only respite the man gets from the onslaught of water is when the bucket runs dry, and the man holding it steps back to refill it from a tap in the corner of the room. 

And Bucky. Bucky, he can't breathe. He's dimly aware of the pencil he's clutching in his hand breaking. He takes notes on paper in class as it's quicker than trying to type with one hand, but right now he's infinitely glad that it's not his laptop that he's just crushed in his grip. He can feel his heart hammering in his chest, but worse than that, he can feel those hands on him and how they hold him now, feel the saturated cloth over his face and the water as it cascades down around him. He's right there. He's not here, not sitting in a warm lecture theatre in the middle of New York; he's in a rough stone room somewhere along the Afghani border. His team are all dead and he’s going to die here too, he can't breathe he can't breathe he can’t—

He doesn't remember getting to his feet, he’s already pushing to the end of the row before he even realises, stumbling over people's bags and feet. Fuck fuck fuck. He needs, he can't—

He doesn't stop until he's standing outside in the quad, the weak autumn sunlight breaking through the clouds half-heartedly and it's not enough. There are tears filling up his eyes and his breath still won't come, when suddenly he hears his name. 

“Bucky!”

He whirls away. That isn't the name he gave to his captors, he's sure. Name, rank and number only, Sergeant James Barnes, not Bucky, never Bucky. What else has he told them? He doesn’t know, he can’t remember but if they know the name Bucky he could have told them all sorts of things. Why can’t he remember? 

“Bucky!”

He hears his name again and it seems familiar. It’s not the accented English of his captors, but a crisp, clear American accent. Someone that he knows, but he can’t place.

“_Shit. _Sergeant Barnes, follow me.” The request is clipped and precise. Bucky has never heard anything that sounded quite so like a command, not in the last two years anyway, and he knows how to follow commands.

He swivels round towards the source of the voice to see Sam Wilson’s retreating back, and so he follows. His breath is still ragged in his throat, and he can feel sweat dripping down his spine despite the coolness of the day, but he’s been given an order and he can follow that.

He follows Sam out of the quad and towards another large building on the edge of the campus, one he hasn’t been in before that he doesn’t recognise. His mind is still running through memories like flashes of lightning, but having something to focus on, even the simplicity of following a single command, it’s like a pathway opening up in a densely packed forest. It’s a trail of breadcrumbs that Bucky knows how to follow, and it’s helping to bring him back into the here and now, helping to anchor him to New York City, and the broad expanse of Sam Wilson’s shoulders leading him away. 

Sam leads him inside, and up two flights of stairs before unlocking the door to a small office. Inside there’s a single desk which, although large, is covered with papers and textbooks, a laptop and an array of post-its. There’s a huge bookcase taking up the whole of one wall, and a large window opposite the door which looks down onto the quad they’ve just exited. These things, Bucky notices later. At first he just notices the bare expanse of wall behind the door, a wall he can put his back to, and still have control over who enters or exits, still see through the window and out onto the grey skies beyond. 

Ignoring Sam, he pushes up against the wall and drops down until he’s sitting on the floor, long hair obscuring his face. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Sam move to close the door and an involuntary noise escapes his throat. Sam’s fingers stutter where they’re about to clasp around the door handle and, without looking at Bucky, he turns around and reaches out to open the window instead. It’s definitely not warm enough outside to have the windows open, but Bucky is so grateful in that moment. If he could get his throat to work, he’d probably be asking Sam to marry him right about now. 

As he sits on the floor, an awareness of himself and his surroundings starts to come back to Bucky. His heart rate is still uncomfortably fast in his chest, fluttering like the wings of a baby bird beating back against a cage. The cold air from the open window is mixing with the drying sweat on Bucky’s skin, but it feels good, the fresh air reminding him that he’s free, that he’s safe. He stares out the open window as he struggles to regulate his breathing, in…out…in…out. He realises after a minute that Sam is no longer in the room, and he can’t pinpoint when he actually left. As the adrenaline of the episode vacates his system it leaves him feeling so drained and exhausted that he can’t even summon the energy to feel embarrassed about the way he left the lecture. He’s glad that Sam was there, knows that the other vet would never judge him, especially not for something like this, but those kids in that classroom, what would they think?

In…out…in…out. Bucky breathes in the cold air in the room, filling up his lungs and holding it there for a moment, willing his heartbeat back into a regular rhythm. Sam’s still not back by the time Bucky starts to feel slightly more in control again, and he starts to look around his surroundings properly. His eyes roam over the messy desk, and the bookcase to his right. There must be close to a hundred books stored there, and although there are a lot of engineering textbooks and serious looking tomes, there is also a good selection of popular fiction and non-fiction, including an ancient looking set of the Lord of the Rings volumes that Bucky suspects might be originals. 

Bucky’s always felt that the books people read, especially those that they keep close by in their homes (or office, in this case), can tell you a lot about who that person is. If you go to someone’s house and they don’t have a single book there, well, Bucky thinks, they’re probably not the kind of person you want in your life. Reading had been one of his avenues of escape both during and after the war. He’d always had a small paperback on his person during active duty — as long as he never picked anything too lengthy, a slim book would slide easily into one of his combat pockets, or in his pack. Since he’d returned home, although he’d found it hard to read fiction, books had been even more a part of his escape from reality than before. Reading about other people’s lives, their histories, their stories, it had helped him put his own life in perspective. And although he still preferred the feel of a real book in his hand, it was usually a lot easier for him to read them on Kindle instead, the small computer neither too cumbersome nor too heavy to hold in one hand. A Kindle is in no way the same as a a good bookcase though, the pleasing aesthetic of being able to run your fingers over their spines, to take one down and feel its crisp pages under your fingertips. 

Bucky’s just thinking about shuffling closer to get a better look at the bookcase when he hears steps approaching along the corridor outside. Bucky stiffens, hoping that whoever it is doesn’t come looking in here for Sam, who still hasn’t returned. 

“Sam?”

A rich baritone calls out from beyond the door as it’s pushed open more widely. Bucky cringes back against the wall further, hidden at the moment by the door itself where it’s swung open. The footsteps stop just on the threshold and Bucky doesn’t dare move an inch, doesn’t even breathe. He knows he must look a state right now, eyes bloodshot, face pale, hair a complete mess. He doesn’t know how he’d explain what he’s doing here on the floor in Sam’s office, especially to someone he doesn’t know. 

Just as Bucky’s worried that the feet are about to step further into the office, perhaps to wait for Sam until he returns, Sam’s voice rings out from further down the corridor.

“Steve! Steve, hold up!” Bucky can hear Sam walking briskly down the corridor towards his office, the brisk _ taptaptap _ of his shoes on the linoleum floor.

“Sam, hey! Are you ready for lunch?” Sam’s friend sounds endlessly earnest, and Bucky is silently praying to every god that’s ever existed that Sam isn’t about to invite him into the office and force Bucky to talk to him right now. He cannot deal with earnest right now, he can’t deal with being friendly and pleasant whilst he’s still feeling flayed raw from his memories.

“Steve, hey! I’m sorry but I need to reschedule.” Bucky can tell from Sam’s tone that this other man is clearly a friend and not just someone else from the department, and he feels instantly bad for causing Sam to miss a lunch date with a friend. 

“Oh,” the other guy — Steve — fails to hide the disappointment in his voice, asks, “is everything ok? Do you need anything…?” 

Bucky cringes back against the wall even tighter, wondering what Sam is going to say to that. _ Yeah, I’ve got an extremely damaged vet in my office, you couldn’t turf him out, could you?” _

Sam, of course, says nothing of the sort. “No, no, just a student having some trouble, but this is the only time they have free. I’m gonna go over some of the material for this week’s seminar with them, give them time to ask whatever questions they need.”

Bucky closes his eyes in relief and lets out a quiet sigh. Of course Sam wasn’t going to out him to this random stranger, he probably wouldn’t even have told Clint the truth, always mindful of other people’s privacy needs. Right now, Bucky’s thinking about proposing to Sam Wilson again – the man is incredibly attractive, that’s for sure.

“Of course, of course,” earnest Steve replies. “No problem. Dinner later?” Bucky is pretty sure that this guy isn’t offended that Sam is brushing him off, hopes he never finds out the real reason why Sam cancelled on him. He doesn’t need someone he’s never met being angry with him, he’s let down enough people he actually knows in his life, he doesn’t need to start a list of people he doesn’t know as well.

“Yeah, that would be great. Got the VA meeting first, though.”

“Right! I’d forgotten. Do you mind if come along?”

Ah, Bucky thinks, so this guy is a vet. Makes sense, how he knows Sam, and Bucky’s guessing he’s not part of the college or else he probably would have met him at a meeting before now. Maybe he’s still in active service, in town on leave and catching up with Sam.

“You’re always welcome, Steve, you know that. You remember what building it’s in?”

“Yes, Sam, it’s not been that long since I was last here.” Bucky can hear the wry tone in his voice, and he’s intrigued by this man, wishes he could see the guy who’s comfortable ribbing the unflappable Sam Wilson. 

“Ok, great, I’ll see you later then?”

“Sure thing, good luck with that student!” Bucky hears the sound of a hand hitting a body, assumes that Steve has just clapped Sam on the shoulder, before his steps start retreating down the corridor. Sam is still until the sound of the door slamming at the far end echoes back down towards the open office door, before he walks in, shutting the door behind him. He quirks an eyebrow at Bucky as he does so, silently asking if it’s okay to close it now, and Bucky gives him a small quick nod in response. 

He’s regained his equilibrium while he’s been sitting here, has felt safe with the cold, hard wall at his back and the fresh air blowing in through the open window. Eavesdropping on the conversation between Sam and Steve has also helped him calm down, focusing his attention on something else apart from his ragged breathing and racing heart. Mostly now, he just feels tired, and he’s profoundly relieved to see two paper cups stacked one on top of the other in Sam’s hand. 

He passes one down to where Bucky is still seated on the floor, and Bucky lets out a small noise of bliss to discover that it’s hot, sweet coffee. He closes his eyes as he drinks it, letting the sounds of Sam milling around his office wash over him, the familiar sounds of everyday life lulling him back into a state of normalcy. Eventually, when the coffee is all gone, and Sam has been sat at his desk quietly working for a good ten minutes, Bucky cracks his eyes open and speaks.

“Thank you.” His voice sounds rough and disused, like it’s been months since he last spoke rather than an hour or so. He’s not surprised to see that an hour has passed since he was sitting in his lecture, he’s lost far more time to episodes before, and he is so incredibly thankful that Sam was there to help him out, lead him somewhere safe and just let him be silent for a while. 

The noise of Sam’s fingers clicking away at his computer keyboard stop at the sound Bucky’s voice, and he looks over at Bucky, a small smile on his face.

“Anytime, friend. I mean that.” And the thing is, Bucky knows that he does, can read the sincerity in the set of his brow, and his measured, even tone. It doesn’t matter that he and Sam aren’t that close, that he’s more Clint’s friend than anyone else, Sam Wilson is a good person, and he’ll always help out someone in need, especially a fellow vet. Even if Bucky’s not sure he deserves that level of kindness and selflessness, he’ll take it, god knows he needed it today.

Bucky knows that Sam isn’t expecting anything else out of him right now. Knows that he could walk right out the door this instance and Sam wouldn’t feel cheated, wouldn’t feel that Bucky was indebted to him in any way. But, the events of earlier, the video that triggered his episode, are still sitting uncomfortably under his skin, swarming around like ants. He finds himself wanting to talk about it. Maybe it’s because Sam is a qualified counsellor with the VA, although Bucky hasn’t had much success with them in the past, and still struggles to talk about these things with his own therapist. It’s probably not fair, to use Sam like this, but he knows Sam will listen and, more importantly, that he’ll understand. That he’s seen what it’s like over there, and can read the truth between the lines when Bucky doesn’t have the right words to explain.

“I was in a lecture, International Relations in Times of War, and there…suddenly, no warning. A video of someone, someone being waterboarded.” Bucky’s voice is so quiet in the office, and the building around them is silent, just the soft susurrus of water moving through the pipes, and the low hum of the strip lighting above. He closes his eyes again, unable to cope with the soft look of understanding on Sam’s face.

“I couldn’t…I was back there. I’ve never told anyone—“ Sam doesn’t insult him by speaking up, doesn’t say any of those trite platitudes _ you don’t have to tell me _ or _ it’s okay not to talk about it, _just lets Bucky say what he needs to, lets him give voice to one of the demons that still haunts him.

“Never wanted to worry my mom, didn’t want Nat or Becca to look at me differently. Everyone thinks they know what war looks like when they see the photos in the news, or the ones we send back smiling. They know I don’t like loud noises, and that’s something they can understand, but I try…I try to downplay the rest.

“It’s not something they could ever understand.” Bucky opens his eyes again and glances across at Sam to see if there’s any judgement on his face so far. He’s seen the calm and accepting way that he allows people to talk at the VA meetings, the way he often offers a quiet _ go on _, but doesn’t press, and doesn’t judge. Sam’s face is open, but there’s a small crease in his brow, as if he’s pained to hear Bucky’s words. Bucky feels bad, to lay his own burdens at Sam’s feet, but now he’s had the courage to start speaking, he’s not sure he can stop. 

“I was a POW.”

Sam’s eyes flash with something then, and Bucky thinks it’s a surprise. It’s not normally something people associate with modern wars, thinking instead about Nazi prison camps and assuming that it doesn’t really happen anymore.

“It’s not, not how I lost my arm, that was an IED, but I was held captive for three months. My family, obviously they know that, but I— they don’t know the state that I was found in, don’t understand how close— how bad—“

Bucky breaks off, breathing deeply for a second as he feels tears start to prick at his eyes again. He’s already cried enough today, eyes still sore and sticky from earlier. 

“My whole team died. Some of them in the explosion — we were ambushed, pinned down — but some of them were in captivity with me and didn’t— they didn’t make it. I nearly didn’t make it. Rescued by Special Forces, which I don’t remember and still know nothing about. It’s classified apparently. My own life is classified.” He breathes out a heavy sigh. “All I know is that they called their CO Captain America, saving American citizens one captive vet at a time.”

Bucky cuts off with a short, harsh laugh. How ironic that he’s not even allowed to know about his own rescue. There are surely files about him somewhere, and the state that he was found in, that he doesn’t have the clearance to see. He feels the irony as a dark bitterness in the back of his throat. Of all the things the army has taken from him, he doesn’t know if this lack of knowledge is a blessing or a curse. 

Sam makes a small noise, and a quick aborted movement. The crease on his brow has deepened even further.

“Sometimes I don’t know how to be normal anymore. If I can’t even sit through a lecture how can I—?” Bucky doesn’t know how to phrase his question but Sam seems to understand him regardless.

“You don’t—“ Sam breaks off to clear his throat, voice thick with emotion. “Even in a lecture about modern war or torture, or whatever, your lecturer shouldn’t be showing content like that without any kind of warning. You probably weren’t even the only vet in that class, but things like that affect people who haven’t been subjected to it. It’s irresponsible and it’s unacceptable.”

Bucky is taken aback by the vehemence in Sam’s tone, his voice burning with an anger that Bucky hasn’t been able to summon in years.

“I—“ It’s Sam’s turn to sound unsure, anger gone in an instance. “I lost someone too. My wingman, Riley. He was blown out of the sky right in front of me, and for the longest time, the longest—“ He breaks off for a moment, voice thick. “For the longest time I thought I was being punished, watching that and not being able to do a damn thing about it, just forced to watch. And then one day, I realised. I wasn’t being punished, I was there to bear witness. Riley was a good man, one of the greatest, and I was there at the end to bear testament to him. It wasn’t a punishment, it was an honor to be there, and to have flown beside him. It took me _ years _to get to that place though — I was angry for a long time, and the grief can still hit me like a freight train.

“We all have our stories of loss. We don’t need to be ashamed of them, or the ways they can affect us even in the normal moments.”

The silence sits heavy between them for a moment as Bucky thinks about how much he bore witness to, how many lives were lost beside him.

“Whose class was it?” Sam asks, breaking them both out of a reverie of loss and grief.

Bucky tells him, and Sam starts tapping away on his keyboard again immediately, before his brain seemingly catches up with his mouth and fingers again.

“I’m going to write a complaint — if you’ll let me that is. I’m a representative on the student council for veteran’s affairs and military personnel, and in my official capacity I’d like to file a formal complaint. PTSD is as much a valid and real disability as physical issues are, or anything else that people suffer from. Just because it’s invisible doesn’t mean— it doesn’t mean you get to be ignored. You shouldn’t have had to watch that, shouldn’t have to miss class because—“ Sam breaks off, stopping himself before he gets carried away again, and looks over at Bucky.

Bucky heaves himself up off the floor and drops gracelessly into the comfy looking armchair in front of Sam’s desk. He rubs his hand over his face and through his hair, giving himself a moment to hide his face and compose himself before he answers.

“I—“ he lets out a loud breath of air, “yes, okay. Yes.”

“Thanks, Bucky. Thank you.” Sam sounds so earnest that Bucky wonders what he did to deserve this, to have this man fighting on his side even though they’re no longer at war. 

Sam immediately starts typing again and Bucky keeps quiet so he doesn’t distract him. There’s a look of ferocious concentration on Sam’s face as he types, and Bucky is infinitely glad that he’s not on the other end of Sam Wilson’s wrath. He’s looking around the room again, searching for something to occupy him while Sam compiles his email, when a book lying on Sam’s desk catches his eye. 

The rest of the books scattered over the surface are engineering books, heavy looking textbooks with things like ‘dynamics’ and ‘aeronautical’ in the title, but this one, this one looks like fiction. Bucky reaches out, and pushes the papers on top of the book away slightly to get a better look, and he sees that it looks like military fiction. The front cover has a picture of a soldier fully decked out in desert combat gear — helmet and sunglasses obscuring his face — with a chinook parked up in the background. 

_ At War with America; one soldier’s account of a decade in conflict. _

Bucky realises that he recognises the title — it’s not fiction at all. The author is credited as ‘Grant Richards’ but Bucky is absolutely certain that it’s a pseudonym. He’d heard a lot of buzz about this book sometime last year when it had come out, but he hasn’t read it. He’s a bit wary about ‘popular’ military memoirs, often suspecting that they’re full of fabrications, elaborations and straight-out lies. The harsh realities of war smoothed over into a pastiche fairytale meant to glorify and idealise — he has no interest in reading something like that. However, this book, this book had made the news as it had all been vetted and acknowledged by the American government, had been a sanctioned release despite the detailed stories within.

Bucky remembers reading that the book pulled no punches, and offered a real insight into what war was really like, so much so that many people who’d read it had been shocked and horrified. It had received a lot of criticism, but a lot of respect as well, especially from vets who had said that this book represented their very real experiences, and not just the PR hearts and minds crap the world was usually shown. That, of course, had intrigued Bucky as much as it had put him off. He’d lived those experiences, he didn’t need to read about them as well. 

While Bucky’s been staring at the book, Sam has finished his email, and is now looking over at Bucky with a question on his face.

“Have you read it?”

Bucky starts slightly, Sam’s voice a surprise in the quiet office. “No, no I haven’t.”

“It’s good. It’s really good. Take it, I think you should read it.” There’s something else in Sam’s tone, something above and beyond a simple book recommendation, even from one vet to another, but Bucky has no idea what on earth it could be. Sam’s been good to him so far though, and if he thinks that Bucky should read this book, thinks that he could benefit from it in some way, well then, Bucky will read it. He trusts Sam.

“Go on, take it.”

Bucky doesn’t need to be told again, and he reaches out and picks up the book. He glances around and realises that his backpack isn’t with him, that he hadn’t grabbed it from under his seat as he’d fled the lecture hall earlier. He really hopes it’s still there, or else he and Nat will be replacing the locks on their apartment later. 

“Thanks Sam. Thank you.” Bucky tries to infuse as much sincerity into his voice as possible, needs to let Sam know how much he appreciates his help today, but not only that, but the non-judgemental way he’d dealt with Bucky’s trauma, the calm way in which he’d acted, and allowed Bucky to control the situation in the ways he needed. Most civilians don’t get that, will never understand the intricate balance when dealing with someone with PTSD, that it’s something that never goes away, and is instead a stormy sea that one can learn to navigate, but only after years of experience in similar waters. Sam has that experience, and Bucky is profoundly grateful for that. Bucky wonders sometimes if he should get a dog, someone by his side constantly that will instinctively react to his needs. But Bucky doesn’t trust himself enough to look after a dog, worries too much about those days when he can barely take care of himself. 

He tucks the book under his arm and flicks a sloppy salute at Sam in farewell, before trudging out the building and back across towards the history department. It’s not currently the changing over between two class times, so the campus is silent and calm, with the usual odd few students milling about, heading to the library or chatting with friends.

Bucky stands outside the door to the lecture hall he’d been in earlier, ears straining to see if there’s any noise coming from inside. Bucky can’t hear anything, so he tentatively creaks the door open a few inches so he can peer inside. Empty. Thank god. He pushes the door open fully and steals inside, heading down to the row where he was sitting. He is intensely relieved to see that his battered backpack is still lying under the seat where he’d abandoned it earlier, and reaches down to grab it. He rifles through it quickly to check that everything is still there — not that he has much to steal — his laptop’s at home anyway – and then heads back outside into the dying light. 

He thinks about going to grab some food and then waiting around on campus for the VA meeting that evening, but he doesn’t have it in him. The energy boost he’d gotten from the sweet coffee that Sam had given him is starting to wear off, and he just wants to go home and lie down on the sofa, preferably with a blanket wrapped around him and some shitty movie on T.V. He’s been going to the VA meetings pretty regularly, but he knows Sam will understand why he’s missing this one. There’s no way he’s getting on the subway right now, but his apartment is close enough to walk to, and it’s not too cold outside yet, even though the season has definitely turned. As he walks home though, he can't help but feel a pang of guilt that he'll be missing out on seeing the face to match Steve’s voice. 

Bucky doesn't put on a movie when he gets home, instead he settles down onto the couch with the book he’d taken from Sam, warming up some leftover pizza for dinner. Nat’s at one of her dance classes this evening so he’s not expecting her for another few hours — that’s another reason why he likes going to the VA meetings on Thursdays, it stops him rattling about alone in their apartment for too long. If he’s lucky she’ll bring some Thai food or something home with her, but for now the pizza will do. He flips open the front cover and starts reading.

_ When I was twenty two, I wanted to write a book. I won’t say _ this book _ , because I’m not the same person I was ten years ago. At twenty two, I thought I was hot shit. I’d graduated from college a year early, paid for through an army scholarship and, on my twenty second birthday exactly, I’d been awarded my green beret — inducted into the U.S. Army’s Special Forces. This is it, I’d thought at twenty two, I’m a mother fucking hero. I’d thought I could write the most badass book about all my exploits, all the courageous deeds I would perform, about all the heroics I’d achieve. _

_ And then two things happened. On my first tour in Iraq, my mom died. I hadn’t been able to tell her anything, apart from that I was in the army and I was being shipped out, even our letters had to be checked and redacted, in case we gave anything untoward away about our location or actions. My mother, Sarah, had been the guiding light for all of my youth, and to not even be there to be able to say goodbye was a cruelty I still have not recovered from. The second thing that happened is, of course, that I went to war. As a wet-behind-the-ears recruit, despite having made it through the brutal selection process, I still had absolutely no clue about what I had signed myself up for. _

_ The first time I saw someone die in front of me, well it’s not something you ever forget. At the end of my first eight-month tour, I no longer wanted to share what I’d seen, share my own actions with the world. I wanted to forget it all. I spent my leave curled up in my childhood home, buried under a blanket that my mom had sewn for me as a child, trying to pretend to myself that I wasn’t crying. _

_ However, you’ll see from the evidence under your hands that I did write something after all. After I was honorably discharged from the army for medical reasons — an IED explosion left me full of shrapnel and with no hearing in my right ear — I was approached about writing about my experiences. Some of the higher-ups in the military had decided that it would be excellent PR to show the good things the army are doing, and the things we achieved in the Middle East. I fought tooth and nail to make sure that this volume, whilst censored for security reasons, doesn’t pull its punches. It doesn’t lie about what it’s really like over there, or the things we as soldiers, have seen and done. It contains real stories about real people, real horror, yet real heroism as well. That’s the book I agreed to write, to give a voice to those who died over there, and to those men and women who — while they may have physically made it home — are still stuck at war, and will carry some of that with them for the rest of their lives. _

_ This book is for everyone who’s served, their families, and the soldiers and families of our enemies too. I know now that there’s no such thing as black and white in war, that those soldiers were doing their duty too, all of us fighting for our partners and children, siblings, parents, friends and country. We are all bound together, and I’ll see them all in the next life. Rest in peace, my friends, rest in peace. _

Bucky has to take a moment to sit and breathe quietly after just reading the opening pages. This book, these thoughts, he knows he could have written them too, if only he could be so eloquent. He knows how he spent his days home on leave, all the tears he’s pretended not to cry over the years, the brothers he’s lost, the things he tries not to remember. He’s not sure if starting this book after the day he’s had is the best idea, but he finds himself drawn in almost against his will. To see someone put his own thoughts to paper so clearly is mesmerising, and he wants to read more, he _ needs _to read more.

Two hours later, Nat comes home to find him sitting in the exact same place, book still clutched in his hand as he devours its contents. He puts it down only briefly, to eat some food with Nat, and also to tell her about his day. He’s getting better about opening up — the conversation with Sam today had been a real challenge for him, but he’s proud of himself for getting the words out. He’s learning that maybe it’s okay to share these things with his friends, to rely on them to hear his thoughts and to help him sort through them all. He tells Nat about the lecture, and calms the fire of her indignation almost immediately when he explains that a complaint has already been made. He tells her that Sam, whom she hasn’t met yet, although she has met Clint, offered him refuge in his office, and he knows that this act of kindness has won over Natasha Romanoff. 

Nat tells him about her class — she studies both Muy Thai boxing and ballet, which might seem like a strange juxtaposition until you see Nat performing either of them. Once you’ve watched the strength of her grace during ballet, complemented with the ease of her movements in Muy Thai, you soon learn that they are one and the same dance. Bucky is still not entirely sure that Natasha isn’t an assassin… He knows she works for the government, and that she worked in D.C. for a while. Her own move back to NYC coincided with Bucky’s return almost a little too well, and he’s never been convinced that she didn’t do it for him, that she hadn’t been able to predict that he’d need her, need a friend without questions or qualifications. If Nat did do that for him, well, he’ll just add it to her tab. He’ll never be able to repay her, not in a million lifetimes, but at least knowing what he owes her for is good.

They chat for a while on the sofa, the two of them snuggled under the same blanket like they used to do when they were kids (and seriously? The whole not admitting he was gay thing? Their parents _ clearly knew — _they used to have sleepovers together, and no one showed the slightest bit of concern). Bucky bids Nat a goodnight just before eleven, getting ready for bed like usual but having no intention of turning his light off anytime soon. He has to get back to reading that book. Like him, Richards had done six tours, across roughly ten years in total, before he’d been discharged because of medical issues. Although his injuries were not as severe as Bucky’s, Bucky reads his own experiences in the loss of purpose that Richards mentions, the way he’d struggled to redefine himself when the military was all he knew. The narrative of Richards’ life swings between his difficulties in becoming a part of the civilian world again — a world unrecognisable from the one he’d left ten years before — and his progression up the ranks in his military career, resulting in him leading his own squadron of elite men.

Bucky reads himself in those lines, the parallel between the Sergeant and the Captain clear. Two men, both taken out of the U.S., and left to navigate the brutality of war. Bucky also reads in every line the war that Richards had brought home with him. He doesn’t read the acronym ‘PTSD’ anywhere, but Richards’ words are dripping with it, it oozes out of every page, like blood and ichor slowly seeping from an unhealed wound. Bucky wonders if this book was Richards’ only form of therapy, or if he talks to someone like Bucky does. He wonders if Richards has found his own VA meetings, wonders if he’s finally learning how to talk about it.

It’s gone four a.m. and Bucky is nearing the end of the book. He’s got one chapter left, and it’s the story of Richards’ final mission.

_ The end of my career in the army is a tale to be told in two parts. The second is the part where I encountered an IED that I could not avoid, although I was, by far, luckier than most. This part is almost fiction to me now, as I cannot recall it with much clarity. I suffered a major concussion along with my other injuries, and have only pieced together the sequence of events through the help of my own men, and the medical team that treated me. To these soldiers, I owe my life, even if the memory does not remain. _

_ Instead, I will tell you what I do know, which is the first part of this tale, and why my team and I ended up deep within enemy territory, where the chance of being torn apart by an explosion would have been a small mercy compared to what other fates awaited us there. I will tell you what I know, although I offer the caveat first that this story gives an insight into some of the worst brutality humanity has to offer, and that it does not have a happy ending. I tell this story to highlight the fact that, if I had not been medically discharged, what I witnessed here, well, I fear it would have caused the end of my military career regardless. _ The old lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori _ , indeed. There is no glory in death, only pain and sorrow. I tell this story here to honor the dead, even though I cannot tell you their names. _

_ Our mission was an extraction. A small team, out on routine manoeuvres, albeit ones towards the edge of what was laughingly called the ‘safe zone’, had been caught in an IED explosion after being pinned down for several days. Military intelligence, however, had no idea what had befallen these men as, when our rescue team reached their last known point, we found nothing there except an explosion crater. _

_ Our first thought was that the intelligence we’d received was wrong — there was no evidence to suggest that some of our men had been caught up in an explosion there, although obviously an explosion had happened. Indeed, the region and the shelled-out village we were directed towards were completely deserted. And then one of my team, Nash, spotted it. One U.S. Army regulation boot, desert sand colored. With the foot still inside. I watched the color drain out of Nash’s face as he’d realised what he’d found, and soon the men saw other signs of what had happened. A piece of someone’s backpack, one helmet, and what looked to be part of a human arm, destroyed almost beyond all recognition. _

_ I called my men over and we sheltered behind a collapsed wall as we discussed our next course of action. The evidence was suggesting that the team we were looking for had been caught in an explosion here, but that all traces of their bodies and things had been removed. I could see the unease ripple around my men as we contemplated what this meant. Had the bodies merely been disposed of somewhere else, burned or buried? Or were some (or all?) of them still alive, the evidence removed so no one even knows to look for them, to rescue them. _

_ Luckily, U.S. Army Intelligence keeps somewhat better tabs on its men that the enemy might have assumed. Although we had lost radio contact with them several days earlier, we now knew for a fact that they had been here, and I radioed back to see if there was any recent aerial footage of the region — if we were lucky, a satellite would have caught some of the action, and what happened afterwards. By the time we’d made it back to the base, the images were ready for me to look at. I took Nash in with me as well, my second in command, but sent the rest of the team to grab some food and get some rest — we never knew when we’d have to head out again. Luckily, there were some images, although not many and what they showed was chilling. There were three time stamps. One, immediately before the explosion, which showed a squadron of ten men spread out, caught in mid-motion of making their way through what was once a village. The second, showed the aftermath of the explosion, with enemy forces starting to approach from the east, towards the scattered bodies of the team. One man, at least, had been on his feet, a survivor of the explosion. The final image; several hours later showed a completely sterile landscape again, so much so that at first glance I'd thought it to be a pre-explosion image displayed out of line. Even upon closer inspection it was not possible to find the evidence of what we knew had been left behind - the arm, the boot, the helmet. Our soldiers’ own camouflage doing far too good a job in the monochrome brown landscape. _

_ And then, that was it. Images from the surrounding area in the hours following the explosion and clearance by the enemy forces were too sporadic, too broad for us to see anymore. We knew what direction they had made their final approach from though, and so that's the direction that we took first. What followed was three months of work for the intelligence teams, accompanied by repeated skirmishes and recces by my men, chasing up possible routes and leads. Each one leading to dead end after dead end after dead end; all the time while our hopes for finding any survivors dwindling. Statistically we knew, captured soldiers didn't survive for very long. _

_ For the next couple of months that lost squadron was always on my mind. Did the man who’d lost his foot have a mother back at home who was worried about him? Had that man who’d lost his helmet had his head shorn by his captors? Did the man who’d lost an arm have a sister who was still writing him letters? Had any of them survived? I’d read all the horror stories about what they do to prisoners of war, either legally or illegally across the globe, and I was kept awake at night obsessing over and over about the fate of those men. Realistically, there was nothing else myself, or my team, could be doing, but I felt personally responsible for these men that I’d never met, these men that we’d been too late to help. Even though we went on many unrelated missions during that period, everyday my thoughts were with those men, the ones we couldn’t save. _

_ Then, towards the end of June, when I’d just about lost all hope of ever finding out what had happened to them, something gave. An insurgent who’d defected over to our side with the promise of protection for his family — his eldest son had been caught kissing another boy, the latter whom had already been caught and publicly executed — he had knowledge about the missing squadron. He admitted to being part of the task force that had attacked them, and that they had covered up all the evidence of the ambush. He knew exactly where they were being held but, he warned us, it had been several weeks since he’d last been there and at that time, only two of them had been left alive. Two. Of ten. _

_ I hadn’t been privy to the interviews with this man — they were conducted solely by military intelligence. But in the briefing where I was given this information I’d had to hold back vomit in my throat. I’d wanted to strangle this man, damn his promise of protection, for the part that he’d played in their slaughter. I knew, though, that my team would be the ones to go after those two remaining men, I knew I couldn’t let the job go to anyone else. Even though there was only a slim chance either of them would still be alive, I still knew we had to go. For my own sanity, and for all the values I’d ever held dear, we had to go. _

_ My men were ready quicker than I’ve ever seen them do before, perhaps the look on my face spurring them into urgency, or else the knowledge of how much this had been affecting me. Although I always tried to lead my team with calm professionalism, after years together they were able to read the secrets under my skin, knew all the things I wasn’t telling them, as easily as reading an open book. Those men could read my mind, still can. _

_ After a hard night’s march, we were approaching the location of the compound where the soldiers had been taken just as dawn was branching out across the horizon. Dawn in the desert is unlike any I’ve ever seen elsewhere, anywhere in the world. The dark leeches all the heat out of the sand, leaving it cold and dark underfoot, but it’s the best time to move, the temperature bearable and easy-going. The sunrise starts as a golden diffuse light, melting the shadows of the mountain tops in the distance. It creeps slowly, slowly, higher into the sky, bringing its yellow light above the horizon, and snatching the darkness back from the night sky, until you realise you can see your hands in front of your face again, you can make out the rough stone path underfoot, make sense of the camo print on the back of the man in front of you. The light steals across the land between one breath and the next and with it comes the warmth of the day again, a heavy oppressive heat that dries the sweat straight off your skin, leaving you covered in salt and sand. I’ll never forget the dawn of that morning which felt like it was waiting just for us, that it was there to bear witness. _

_ We’d taken a moment to gather our bearings — we had the scarcest of information about the patrols at the compounds, although these were two weeks out of date at best — before conducting our final approach towards the enemy’s position. If the thoughts I’d been running through in my mind those past months had been bad, it was nothing compared to the reality. There, just beyond a low stone wall was a burial pit, still left open to the sky, with the bodies of the American soldiers piled in it. The smell, god the smell, it was the most godawful thing I’ve ever smelt in my entire life, and my whole team pulled their scarves up over their mouths as we took a second look. The bodies inside were in varying states of decomposition, as well as several missing limbs from what we could see. It was clear that they’d been picked at by scavenging birds, and I couldn’t figure out why they’d leave it open to the elements, why leave that smell, and the evidence? _

Bucky feels sick.

He knows this story. _ He knows it. _ He knows that pit, knows why they kept it open when it would have made sense to close it up, burying those dead soldiers under ten tons of earth, or burn the corpses into nothing so no evidence of their passing could ever be found. He’d been shown that pit almost daily, been shown the rotting corpses of his team, his brothers, and told, _ this is for you, this grave waits for you. Unless you tell us what we need to know. _ The reason the burial pit was still open is that they were waiting to put Bucky in it too. They were waiting until they finally tortured him to death, until they lost all hope that he might tell them something useful and end it once and for all.

Bucky, for his shame, had prayed for that end every day. He prayed to every god he’d ever heard of and even made up some of his own, despite not believing in any of them.

This man, this man whose words feel like they’ve been ripped from Bucky’s own soul unbidden, he’d been part of the team that had saved Bucky. Indeed, he’d been the captain that Bucky had heard so many whispers about, the legendary captain who’d had hundreds of successful missions under his belt, and who’d been injured — it seemed — in Bucky’s own rescue. Bucky hadn’t known that, hadn’t ever been told that any of the Special Forces team had been injured, especially not injured severely enough to warrant being invalided out of the army for good.

He’s going to be sick.

He runs to the bathroom, trying not to slam the doors and wake Nat. He has no idea what time it is, only that it’s still dark outside, and that Nat can’t see him like this.

Why had no one told him? That this man had written his story and published it for the whole world to see? But then Bucky realises, it because _ he never told anyone _ . His family, Nat, they know that he was kept captive for a period, knows that because the military had informed his family, had started to prepare them for the worst, or the possibility that they might never know for sure what had happened to Bucky, or ever get his body back. So they knew, but they didn’t _ know. _ Bucky had downplayed it as much as possible, had never gone into any details, not even to Nat, so there’s no way they ever could have known. Maybe, maybe if they’d read this book they might have had their suspicions, but neither of his sisters, nor his mom would go looking for a book like this; worried that what they’d read would be too hard, knowing that even the everyday stories of war could be hard to stomach. 

When he’s finished retching into the toilet bowl, he stands up on shaking legs and draws a mouthful of water from the tap in his cupped hand. He thinks about the arm that Captain Richards had seen at the explosion site, wonders if that had been his own, or if another member of his team had been dismembered too. He wonders which of his brothers lost a foot, wonders who had survived long enough to make it to the compound, or who was thrown into that pit on the very first day. They’d never let them see each other, not even a glimpse from across a courtyard or through a crack in the wall of adjacent cells. Bucky had tried to discern who was still alive from the timbre of the screams he heard, but one man’s pain sounds much like any other, and he’d never been sure. 

He needs to keep reading. He owes it to his men, and to Captain Richards and his team, who by all accounts had spent months trying to find Bucky and his men. 

_ I could hear one of my men being sick off to the side, but couldn’t tear my eyes away from the mess of bodies beneath us to see who. We were all frozen there in shock, the danger of being within the enemy compound completely forgotten, until Nash finally spoke. _

_ “Cap, I think we’re one short.” _

_ I’m not sure whether I felt more horror or relief in that moment. To see the evidence of how these men had been brutalised and tortured was bad enough, but to know that there was still a man alive, still being subjected to their torture after weeks and weeks, I feared to think what the state of that man might be. _

_ “Form up, we’re back to plan A.” _

_ My men didn’t hesitate for a second. If there was any chance an American soldier was left alive in there, then we were going in. Not because of the ideals of freedom, and America-first that they spout on the television or in movies, or when politicians are speaking from safe inside their slave-built homes, but because if there was a soldier, then he was our brother, as sure as the men standing next to me, and we couldn’t leave him behind. _

_ As promised by our informant, the compound was relatively unguarded, only a few older men left with rifles and pistols. I suppose the younger men were away doing some ‘real fighting’, whereas it doesn’t take youth to detain and torture someone, especially when there’s only one man left. I won’t pretend that we didn’t kill every single person in the compound, I won’t buy in to fairytales like that. We were at war, we were in the middle of a hostile war zone, and they had our man. I will tell you that there were only men to be found within, no women, or children, although if they had been wielding rifles at us too, I can’t with complete confidence tell you what I would have done. If you’ve never had a child aim an M-15 assault rifle at you, you’ll never be able to understand the dilemma you’re presented with. It’s just a child, your mind tells you, but it’s a child who’s going to kill you if you don’t react. What would you do? _

_ We made our way across into the main building, where we hoped the soldier would be found, and after clearing the rest of the base, there was only one room left. Someone had found a set of keys on one of the men we’d killed as we’d moved through the compound, and one of them slotted easily into the door in front of us. What we found inside… _

_ There was a man, skinny and half naked, chained to the back wall by thick heavy chains. He was held there by only one wrist, as the other arm… The other arm was a mess of blood, bone and sinew, cut off just above the elbow, and emanating a stench of rotting flesh so strong that I assumed we were too late; this man must be dead. And then, a slight movement, a sound that would have been a cough except it was too quiet, too weak. I actually couldn't believe he was still alive, he looked like a corpse — his humerus was sticking out of the bloody congealed stump of his arm, bright white like some spectral beacon. Miller, our medic, rushed forward while Nash immediately moved forward with the ring of keys. The guy recoiled at Miller’s light touch on his good shoulder, starting away like he'd been electrocuted. The burn marks on his chest told me that he had been. The sharp movement he made caused a deep wracking cough that shook his body like an earthquake and in that moment I thought it was the end. I thought we'd found him just for him to die in front of us at the last moment. _

_ However, the cough subsided and the man collapsed against his chains, long greasy hair falling down to cover his pale and sunken face. Nash moved forward with the keys again, and this time was able to get close enough to slot a long, thin key into the manacle around the man's wrist, which fell to the floor with a loud clang. I crouched down in front of the man and tried to ask him his name, tell him who we are. There was no indication of his rank, although his dog tags were still slung around his neck, as if his captors had left them there as the only means of distinguishing between their prisoners, especially after death. I'd dared not lean in and reach for the tags though, too scared of making him cough again — I’d feared another bout like that and he may not make it out of here. _

_ The men laid our medevac stretcher out beside him and the soldier half collapsed, half rolled onto it, bringing up his remaining hand to scrub weakly across his face. His left shoulder twitched with the same movement, as though his brain was still trying to move his left hand in synch, unaware that the limb was no longer there. I wondered how much of his surroundings he was aware of, if he knew he was being rescued, or if he was chalking this up to some pain-induced fever dream. _ You're safe _ , I told him, _my name's Captain Richards, I'm with the U.S. Army. You're safe, we’re getting you out of here.

_ I don't think he heard me, or didn't understand if he did. Perhaps the concepts of freedom, of safety, were so alien to him at that point that they were meaningless, impossible to understand. He started thrashing weakly as we tried to secure him to the stretcher, but moments later he passed out, as the shot of morphine that Miller had injected him with overwhelmed his stressed nervous system. _

_ The medevac stretcher is a tiny, thin thing but strong enough to bear the weight of a single man. Weighing around 240 pounds myself I had never fancied my chances on one, but emaciated as he was, the unconscious soldier would be no trouble, especially if we we took turns carrying him — one man at either end of the stretcher. There was a helicopter waiting to meet us at the rendezvous point a couple of kilometres away, but even with the added burden of the soldier we would make it there within the hour. It all seemed easy. After months of searching, we’d at least managed to save one member of the team — if he survived the extraction — and knew where to come to retrieve the bodies of the others, so at least their families would have something to bury. _

_ Of course, it wasn't that easy. We had been allowed to retrieve the soldier from the compound. They had been willing to sacrifice some of their less-abled soldiers in order to entice in a full Special Forces unit to their location. As we exited the building, an explosion rocked through us, the largest brunt of it hitting myself, who'd been on point. And that's all I can tell you. I know from my men that whether by luck or poor design — perhaps the bomb had gone off too soon — I was the only one who had fully exited the building at the time, and the rest of my team were more or less shielded by the walls. I was knocked unconscious immediately, and I learnt later that my helmet had cracked under the force of the impact, so I’m extremely thankful that I was wearing it. _

_ My team, my beautiful, brilliant, determined team, got both my unconscious ass, and that of the injured soldier, out from the compound, and over three kilometres of desert to meet with our rendezvous. I know that Nash, my 2ic, my best friend, my brother, carried the soldier in a fireman’s lift all the way to that helicopter, so my men could carry me on that flimsy stretcher. _

_ I woke up in the base medical facility over twenty-four hours later, and our rescued soldier was long gone — immediately evacuated back to the States for treatment, and I still have no idea if he even survived. I like to think that if he survived my team lugging him across the desert — and let me tell you, all those thoughts you have about miles of soft sand dunes, that’s complete bullshit. Most of the terrain in the desert is this unique blend of stony terrain underfoot, a kind of hard, compacted sand and dirt that’s been compressed over thousands of years, spotted with fist-sized rocks that exist only to try to trip you up — I like to think that if the soldier survived my team manhandling him over all that to our evac helicopter, then he could survive a flight back to the U.S. _

_ But I’ll never know. That information became classified as soon as we got him back to base, even his name. I did learn that the guy we rescued was the team’s Sergeant, and that makes sense to me — he had to make sure he survived longest, so he knew that none of his team had been abandoned. As a Captain, I can identify with the sheer stubbornness that must have kept him alive, despite the severity of his injuries, the repeated and brutal beatings and torture that he was subjected to, that was evident all over his body when we found him. The sight of him, a complete stranger to me, shackled to that wall by one good arm, still keeps me awake at night sometimes, still adds fuel to my nightmares as I think about what the rest of his team must have gone through as well, what he had endured before we arrived. _

_ Sometimes in my nightmares, we don’t escape. My team are imprisoned there alongside him, our corpses slowly added to theirs in that hell pit. In my nightmares I’m chained up there with him, slowly wasting away into nothingness. I got off lucky, lost most of the hearing in my right ear, and I’ll forever be setting off metal detectors with the shrapnel left in my body, but I’m alive, which is more than I can say for many who’ve fought over the decades. _ Only the dead have seen the end of war _ , says Plato; well my brothers, rest in peace. _

_ In our pre-briefing documentation that day we were given just enough information to be able to identify those soldiers if we found them alive. I know that the soldier we managed to rescue that day, he was their Sergeant. So I can only say, at the close of this book, and which I offer to all those who’ve served, and all their families: Sergeant, soldier, brother, friend; I’m sorry we didn’t find you sooner, and I’m so sorry for what happened to your team. I hope you survived, and I hope you can find some sort of peace. You did good, soldier, I’m so fucking proud of you. _

Bucky is fucking sobbing as he drops the book onto the floor beside his bed. Huge great ugly fucking sobs that leave him gasping for air and choking around his tears. 

He did good.

Did he? It hadn’t felt like it, while he rotted in that cell, and for months and months afterwards. Every time they took him to see that open grave, every time they showed him what was waiting for him, the bodies of his brothers rotting below, it didn’t feel like he’d done anything right. He was their sergeant, their leader, he was supposed to protect them, supposed to lead them away from harm, not into it.

He’s so consumed by his sobbing that he doesn’t even notice the door to his bedroom opening and Nat coming in until she’s right up next to him. He’s on edge though, still back in that cell in the middle of hell, where every touch was an unkindness designed to hurt, and he lashes out. In his mind he swings with his left hand as he pins with his right, which works in Nat’s favour, as there is no left hand there to connect with her face. The lack of limb throws him off balance, and he’s off center as he lands on top of her. He flips him easily, but doesn’t pin him down in return, knows even now as he’s physically attacking her, that he hates to be restrained, doesn’t like people touching him when he’s stuck in the past like this. She immediately backs up against the door, but she doesn’t leave.

“Bucky. Bucky! Stop! стоп!”

The Russian helps him, jars him out of the past and into the present — no one in the desert spoke Russian, especially not the way that Natasha Romanoff does, with that lilting sarcasm heavy in her voice, like the Russian language is a secret joke between the two of them. In a way, it is — it’s how they’d communicated a lot at school — Bucky learning fluency from Natasha — enabling to talk about their classmates secretly right in front of their faces. Natasha’s Russian always sounds fond when she talks to Bucky, and that’s what he focuses on now.

“ты в порядке, мой друг. ты в безопасности. Это я. Ты в безопасности.”

“да, да. я понимаю. я здесь. я понимаю.”

The two of them stay on opposite sides of the room for a moment, Bucky’s breathing heavy and labored, Nat’s calm but not silent. Bucky focuses on that sound, the sound of Nat breathing slowly in and out, the sound of his oldest friend, still here, still breathing, despite him trying to grab her round the throat only moments before.

“я здесь.” Bucky says again when he’s regained some equilibrium. _ I’m here. _ In the here and now, not in that cell with Captain Richards and his team. Bucky can’t imagine what it would have been like if Richards and his squadron had been captured as well, how Bucky would have coped listening to their screams. He probably wouldn’t have been alive to see it, he’d been near the end as it was, and once they had a whole new host of American soldiers to torture for information, well, that would have been the end of Bucky’s own usefulness.

_ Don’t think about that now! _

He’s saved from his own thoughts once again by Nat speaking, this time in English.

“You okay, James?” He doesn’t like that name, and knows she only uses it to get a rise out of him, but he appreciates it now. Being annoyed at Nat’s silly use of his first name is an effective distraction — it takes him back to their childhood, and Nat’s taunting impressions of their homeroom teacher, who somehow had always managed to pronounce James with a ‘d’ somewhere in there. It had almost been like a heavy Russian pronunciation, but with two Russian-speaking children on the receiving end, it always just managed to send them into peals of laughter instead. No one in the army called him James, not his unit, not his CO, and not his captors. 

He realises that he hasn’t answered Nat, and manages to force some words out of his mouth. “Yeah Romanoff, I’m ok.” He lets out a huge huff of air, before he continues, “Sorry I woke you.”

She gives him a hard look for a moment before it softens, “You didn’t wake me, мой дорогой друг, it’s morning.”

Bucky's head whips around towards the windows where he can now see that the light is creeping in around the blackout blinds. 

“Shit.”

Nat looks over at him, more worried now than when she came in. “Nightmares again? Did you sleep?”

Bucky glances down at the book on the floor. “No, not nightmares. I— you need to read this book,” he says, reaching down to grab it. “I stayed up all night reading it, it just… read it.” Bucky feels kind of stupid admitting that, almost like he’s a kid again who’s been caught doing something naughty. But, he’s an adult, if he wants to stay up all night reading and get no sleep, that is actually allowed. So okay, he hasn’t had the most mentally balanced twenty four hours, and he’s probably about to crash, but he’s had worse days, that’s for sure.

“Okay,” Nat says, stepping closer to take the book from Bucky’s hand, but she’s looking at him like he’s suddenly grown an extra head. She takes the book gingerly, like she’s expecting it to explode, or some sort of prank on Bucky’s behalf. It’s like she can’t really understand why he’s been up all night reading a simple book. Bucky had done it more than once as a child, flashlight hidden under the covers to stop the tell-tale light from escaping under the door and out into the corridor. Nat, though, she’s always been more practically-minded, and the concept of staying up all night for something whimsical, Bucky’s pretty certain she’s never done that; for work, sure, but not for a book.

He needs her to understand, though, why it’s important that she reads this one. Because he’s ready to share that part of him, that part of his story, with Nat at least.

“It’s… It’s non-fiction. Written by some guy who was in the Special Forces. He— He’s the one— He was captain of the team that—“ Bucky can’t get the words out, doesn’t know how to say, _ it’s me, Nat, this is the guy who saved my life and I don’t even know who he is. _

Nat, as always, seems to be able to read his mind though. “The team that found you?” Bucky just nods in response, tongue tied and anxious. “Oh, wow.” 

Nat sinks down onto the bed next to him, close enough so that her side is pressing up against his lightly, but not enough to feel like she’s crowding him. Nat always knows how much contact he can take, how much she needs to offer him to make him feel comfortable, to make him feel safe. It’s one of the reasons why he chose to live with her, why she is family now, really.

Bucky reaches out with his right hand, twining his fingers up with Nat’s, and she bumps her shoulder up against his in response. They sit like that, breathing in the quiet together for a few minutes, and it’s exactly what Bucky needs. It helps him to absorb what he’s just read, and to prepare himself for Nat knowing all the details as well. She’s probably guessed it all anyway, has seen more of his nightmares than anyone, has seen the scars on his torso, his arm and legs. She’s smart enough to put the pieces together without him having to spell it out, but she’s also smart enough to realise this means something. That here, in her hands, is an account of part of Bucky’s life that he was missing, a part that had been taken from him.

This book is a gift to Bucky miles beyond its physical or monetary cost, this book is a part of him, and he wonders how much Sam Wilson had guessed when he urged Bucky to take it. He thinks that Sam had put the pieces together, after what Bucky had shared with him today. He would have thought that knowledge would make him anxious, someone else knowing his darkest secrets, that he was the only one to survive while he let all his men die, but somehow it’s okay. Maybe reading it through someone else’s eyes has helped Bucky to understand, or maybe it’s the perspective of the captain himself, that it had come from someone else whose job is was to protect their men. Captain Richards hadn’t judged Bucky, had only offered sorrow and absolution in his words. There had been no blame, no reprimand, just the hope for a better future, for a better present. 

Bucky wants to hold those words close to his heart like the precious gift they are. To keep them at his fingertips all the time so he knows that his survival was not a mistake, to know that someone — even a stranger — cared enough to look for him, and was prepared to die trying. Those words give Bucky worth far greater than his material sum, a worth that means he was, and indeed still is, a part of something greater than himself, something good. The brother- and sisterhood of soldiers stretches out across the whole of America, and Bucky still deserves to be a part of that, _ is _still a part of it, despite the loss of his unit. He feels like this book, those words that even before his own story, had resonated so closely with his own thoughts, that it is a kind of acceptance. He also knows with absolute clarity that the book is a form of Captain Richards’ own penance — seeking forgiveness for all the men he couldn’t save, for all the lives that were lost under his watch, just like Bucky yearns for that same forgiveness. 

This man saved Bucky’s life; his obsession with finding Bucky when he didn’t know anything about him is the whole reason he lives and breathes. The loss of one arm in all that is a small price to pay. But Bucky, he’s been without that support for so long, the surety that someone would have his back, would support him no matter what. Ever since he lost his unit, he feels like he’s been on the outside of that bond of brotherhood. With his words, here, Bucky feels like Captain Richards is offering him a place back within that circle, back within that security. 

Nat breaks the silence of Bucky’s reverie. “Alright JB, I gotta get to work. Get some sleep, okay? I’ll see you later.”

She leans over and kisses the top of his head, and he nods mutely. Yes, sleep does sound good right now, and he flops back under the warmth of his bed covers as Nat eases his door closed behind her, leaving it ajar an inch. He can make out the sounds of Nat bustling around the apartment as she gets ready for her day, but the exhaustion of the last twenty four hours overtakes him, and he’s asleep before he even hears the front door shut as Nat heads out.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation for the Russian:  
стоп! -- stop!  
ты в порядке, мой друг. ты в безопасности. Это я. Ты в безопасности -- You're fine, my friend. You are safe. It's me. You're safe.  
да, да. я понимаю. я здесь. я понимаю -- Yes, yes. I understand. I'm here. I understand.  
я здесь -- I'm here.
> 
> My Russian schooling amounts to two semesters a long time ago, so I apologise for any mistakes.
> 
> Next chapter will be up on Wednesday, and I promise that Steve and Bucky will finally meet properly!


	3. Chapter 3

He wakes up at lunch time feeling pretty refreshed, all things considered. He has a slight headache, but he chalks it up to the long, sleepless night, and the crying fit that had consumed him this morning. He pads out into the kitchen in his bare feet, pyjamas sitting low enough on his hips that they almost form socks as well. He gulps down a large glass of water, and a rush of warm affection for Nat blooms through him as he sees she’s left him a bacon sandwich on the counter. It’s cold now, but it still tastes buttery and greasy and delicious. And really, if he hadn’t been gay, he would have married Nat years ago. She just gets him, in a way that is understated and effortless. He’s never really had a proper relationship, too scared of being outed whilst he was in the army, but he hopes that when he does find someone, that they’re like Natasha Romanoff, even just a little bit. 

Thankfully, he doesn’t have any classes today so he hasn’t missed one, and doesn’t have to haul ass down to campus now. He putters around the house a little bit, tidying up the sofa and peering into Nat’s room to see if there’s anything interesting in there. Why he thinks he’s going to find something new in Nat’s room is a mystery, and he flops down on her bed and just lies there staring up at the ceiling. She has one of those old fashioned alarm clocks which is slowly ticking away, marking time and Bucky’s heartbeat all the same.  _ Ticktock-ba-dom-ticktock-ba-dom.  _ He dozes off again to the rhythmic sound of the clock, head lolling to the side, cheek pressed warm against Nat’s soft comforter. He awakes with a start to the slamming of a door in the apartment above, and it takes him a moment to realise that the pitter-patter sound he can hear is not the rushing of his own heart, but the tap tap tap of rain against the window. The sun is setting outside, and the red-purple glare it’s giving off is reflected in a thousand raindrops dotted against the window. 

Bucky goes for a run. The rain is heavy and cold, and it’s nothing like the desert and everything like New York and he feels like he’s flying, his feet fleet against the sidewalk, and he honestly hasn’t felt this light in years. He feels as if he could keep running forever, the sidewalk miles disappearing beneath his feet, as if the distance could transport him to a different time and place, somewhere wholly apart from this world. For once, he doesn’t feel unbalanced, and in the darkness he doesn’t feel like people are watching. He’s wearing a t-shirt despite the cool late-October weather, and the stump of his shoulder more or less fills the sleeve. As he runs on and on, he feels like himself again, like the Bucky that used to exist before the war, before the torture and the PTSD and every day feeling like a new challenge he has to face. As he runs he doesn’t feel like he’s inadequate, like his marred body isn’t good enough — he’s fast enough, he’s strong enough to do this, to run and run and run, and the state of his arms makes no difference to his feet. 

He runs for over two hours, cutting a giant loop that weaves across the city, running down by the Hudson for a while, and just drinking in the sight of the water stretching out away from him, feeling almost light enough that he could run straight across the water and out to sea, leaving New York behind, leave everything behind, and just be Bucky with his feet and his trainers, and no need for two hands, no need for anything else at all. By the time he gets home the rain has abated but he’s soaked through to the skin, hair dripping down onto his face from where it’s escaped his hair tie. His skin is red-flushed and cold to the touch but his heart is beating strong like a beacon saying  _ I’m here, I’m still alive, you can’t stop me,  _ and Bucky thinks — for a moment — that  _ it’s for you, Captain Richards, this heartbeat,  _ and it doesn’t feel strange or weird to think that way about someone he’s never met, because he knows that Richards understands, and he knows he wouldn’t judge. 

By the time he gets out of the bath, Nat is home from work and he’s pleased to see that she’s sat on the sofa reading the book he’d handed off to her this morning. She looks engrossed already, so Bucky grabs his laptop and orders them a couple of pizza, lying down on the opposite end of the sofa and shoving his feet into her lap.

“Fuck’s sake, Barnes, get your gross feet away from me.” Nat doesn’t even take her eyes off the book as she speaks, but Bucky knows she isn’t serious. He lifts up one foot until his toes are brushing up against her hands.

“Nooo, Nat, give me a massage.” He’s feeling stupid and playful, like he pounded all his stress into the sidewalk and left it there, forced down into the ground or swirled away down the drains with the rainwater. “I’ll pay you in pizza.”

“I know for a fact that you’ve already ordered, so that means nothing to me.”

There’s a smirk on her face and she makes absolutely no move to put down the book and acquiesce to Bucky’s demand. He doesn’t mind, he’s happy to just sit here in silence with Nat, enjoying the casual closeness of another human being without it freaking him out, without feeling crowded and anxious. It’s nice.

They spend the rest of the evening on the sofa together, both relishing in the feel of a lazy Friday night, knowing that neither of them has anything pressing they have to do tomorrow. They gorge themselves on pizza, and Bucky turns on Netflix in the background quietly. Nat doesn’t even put the book down to eat, holding it in one hand and grabbing slices with the other, and Bucky is secretly pleased that she’s so engrossed. He’s anxious too, for Nat to get to the part about him, but not in a bad way. More like the anticipation he used to feel the night before starting a new school year, excited about making new friends, but still a little anxious in case nobody likes you.

He knows that Nat likes him, loves him even, but there’s still a tiny voice inside his head that says,  _ well okay, but what if this is the thing that changes that _ . He knows, truly, that Nat would never judge Bucky, especially not for this, but it’s something that he’s been holding close for so long, something that he’s kept so secret, that it feels like being let out of a cage for the first time. Tentatively looking around, and not trusting anything, but knowing that there’s something so much better out there. He knows that trusting Nat with this is a big step, and he knows on Monday that when he goes to see his counsellor, she’ll make a big deal out of it, knows that it is something to feel good about, something to feel proud of. But right there, on the sofa, his feet still resting in Nat’s lap, he only wants the quiet acceptance that the evening offers, and the promise of perhaps turning a new chapter, where he’s not so ashamed of the past anymore. 

Nat shoos him off to bed around midnight and despite his protests that he's not tired, he falls asleep almost instantly, sleeping straight through til morning, completely nightmare free. He wakes still in the good mood that had settled over him yesterday afternoon with his run and part of him wants to believe that maybe this is a new equilibrium for him. He wants to believe that he's turned a corner into the next part of his life, where he's not Bucky the soldier, or Bucky the injured vet, but just Bucky, history major and lover of bad sci-fi movies and cheap paperbacks. He gets up and goes for another run even though it's fully light outside in the crisp autumn sunshine, but he still enjoys it. He gets a few nods from fellow runners but no untoward looks or judging glances, just the camaraderie of other runners out for the morning. This could be another brotherhood he could belong to. He's starting to feel a part of the VA, of the community of friends and support he's starting to find there, but there's nothing to say he can't have more than one facet to his identity. 

Nat’s still not awake by the time he gets back which is unusual for her, but it's the weekend and they have nothing that needs doing so he just lets her sleep. He pops back out of the apartment and down to the bakery on the corner. It's kind of hipster, and he's definitely out of place in his sweaty running gear but he's not bothered by it. People are staring at him because his shirt is covered in sweat and his stubble definitely isn't designer, not because of his arm. Is this how normal people live their lives? 

The queue is long but he doesn't mind waiting, and he passes the time by checking out the guy in front of him. He's fit, around Bucky’s height but with broad, wide shoulders that taper to a narrow waist which should look ridiculously out of proportion, except this guy is making it work. His hair is regulation short and his posture has that telling sign of relaxed but ever-ready that many vets have, and Bucky is absolutely certain that he's at least a vet, if not currently serving. His shirt is obscenely tight and also covered in sweat like Bucky’s own. Sweat drops are clinging to the ends of his blond hair and it's a good look on him. Bucky can't help but want to lick the salt off his skin and the thought surprises him for a moment. It's been a long time since he felt interest in anybody; he hadn't been with anyone since the last time he was home on leave, before he lost his arm. He contemplates for a moment tapping this guy on the shoulder, asking him if he wants to get a coffee perhaps, but then the guy is placing his order — two coffees, two pastries — and the impulse has passed. This guy obviously has someone waiting for him back at home. So does he though, even if it's only Nat, which really isn't bad, all things considered. Bucky suspects also that she had been up very late finishing the book like he'd done the night before and he's anxious to see what she thinks. 

The buff guy is turning away from the counter now, coffees in hand, and he looks over at Bucky on his way out, gives him a brief smile. Bucky smiles back, and just revels in the normalcy of it all — a cute guy smiling at him in a coffee shop and, from the way that Bucky had been standing — he’s sure the guy hadn’t spotted Bucky’s left arm. He had just smiled at him because he wanted to and not out of any misplaced pity or — worse — the apology smile, when they’ve been caught staring and don’t want to look like too much of a jackass.

The girl behind the counter takes Bucky’s order with a smile today, and he really could get used to this. She gives him a carrier for the coffee and a bag for the pastries, but only after he asks, not because she’s trying to be rude but because she, also, hasn’t noticed that he’s only got one arm and that carrying all this might be difficult. 

He honest to god starts whistling as he walks the few hundred meters back to the apartment, and although it’s cold outside, the sun is shining brightly and Bucky is happy to be alive. Not, feeling merely okay at the thought that he’s still alive, not accepting of the fact that he made it back, but happy, to still be here, to be able to experience this day. The shower is running when he gets back inside which at least means Nat is awake. He turns the oven on low and shoves the bakery goods and coffee inside to keep them warm. It’s probably not the best system, will over-crisp the croissants if he’s not careful but it’ll do. He really needs to use the bathroom after Nat, the sweat has dried into a salt crisp along his skin now. It feels tight and reminds him of the heat of the desert, when the sweat would evaporate off you almost instantly, leaving salt stains on your clothes, skin and gear. 

When Nat walks out of the bathroom and sees him though, all thoughts of a shower disappear. Her face just melts, not into pity, but… Bucky doesn’t have the words to describe it, doesn’t have a frame of reference for the kind of selfless love and acceptance that he sees on Natasha’s face in that moment. It’s a look that fiercely says,  _ I will protect you, _ but also something soft and easy. He remembers seeing that face on his mother when he was younger, until he’d grown taller than her, and she’d grown too busy, until she’d started to rely on Bucky to take care of his little sisters, rather than someone she needed to take care of herself. 

Natasha strides over to him in three quick steps and envelops him in the fiercest hug he’s ever been subjected to. He feels like the life’s being squeezed out of him, but maybe that’s just the pain that he’s been holding onto. Here, now, is someone who knows exactly what’s happened to him, and what he let happen to his men, the men he was meant to take care of. Here is someone who’s seen what it’s done to him, who’s seen the burdens he still carries and heard the nightmares that still wake him up on a regular basis. Nat knows everything about him, and here she is, hugging him like she never wants to let go and something breaks inside of Bucky and suddenly he’s sobbing and clutching Nat back like he’s drowning and she’s his life raft.

One of Nat’s hands draws up from where it’s resting on his back to run her fingers through his hair. Bucky dimly thinks that it can’t be very nice, his hair still damp from sweat, but it feels so good, like being comforted as a child, that he can’t bring himself to tell Nat to stop. He just sobs into her arms as she mutters nonsense words to him, letting him fall apart without judging him, as if somehow this would be the thing that would turn the tide of the formidable Natasha Romanoff. She doesn’t push him away, of course, doesn’t seem like she’d have any problem standing here all day with Bucky if that’s what he needed, and he knows he got damn lucky the day Nat’s family moved in next door all those years ago, knows he could never find a better friend.

It could be minutes later, it could be an hour. Bucky has no semblance of time when he finally pulls out of Nat’s embrace.

“Sorry,” he mutters, quietly, bringing up his hand to wipe at his eyes.

“Hey now, it’s okay. Really.”

“I was just apologising for getting snot in your hair actually.”

Nat laughs at that and Bucky knows that everything’s okay.

“Why don’t you grab a quick bath and then we can put some shitty Netflix on?”

And that, that sounds like Bucky’s idea of heaven right now.

“Yeah, yeah. There’s coffee in the oven. I’ll be quick — five minutes!” Nat gives him a weird look, as if to query why the coffee is in the oven, but she doesn’t make a comment and Bucky heads off to the bathroom, stripping out of his running gear as he goes. True to his word, he takes barely more than five minutes, filling the bathtub up with only a few inches of water, and performing some slightly-yoga-esque acrobatics to get his hair wet and washed. 

Nat’s curled up on the sofa when he comes back, thick fluffy socks on his feet. It’s a beautiful day outside, but he’s already been out there, done his run, made the most of the sunshine or whatever. He wants to spend the rest of this day on the sofa with Nat, just quietly drinking in the fact that she knows, and she hasn’t left. He pads over to the kitchen and grabs their breakfast out of the oven; it takes a bit of juggling with only one hand, but he can’t be bothered to ask Nat for help, doesn’t need help to do normal everyday stuff, and that’s not just stubbornness speaking. Probably. 

When Bucky collapses onto the sofa next to Nat he’s expecting her to say something about what she’s read, but she doesn’t. There’s just a quiet thanks for a coffee, and then she hands him the T.V. remote. The quiet acceptance that Nat is offering right now means more to Bucky than any other actions or big declarations she could have made. He knows she’ll say something eventually, but right now the quietness between them is a soothing softness that helps Bucky to forget his own ragged edges, even just for a moment.

He doesn’t need Nat to tell him it’s okay, doesn’t need her to fix him or anything stupid like that. But sitting here with him, even after she’s seen his darkest moments, it might be the start of Bucky starting to fix himself. Bucky thinks that maybe he’s starting to accept who he might be now, or at least is investigating the possibility. It feels fucking fantastic. He’s spent a long time mourning the loss of the Bucky he was before — of that bright, cocky Army greenie, walking into the recruitment office with a Brooklyn twang and a hell of a swagger. That Bucky, he’s gone for good, but the Bucky that’s still here, that’s still kicking and still fighting despite everything, maybe he’s not such a bad guy. He’s a little softer, and a little rougher, if that’s possible, but he’s still smart, still funny, maybe even a little bit cocky still.

It’s not until much later, when they’ve eaten their way through a whole day of junk food and are heading to bed that Nat finally mentions the book, resting her hand lightly on his knee to stop him getting up from the sofa.

“Barnes,” she only calls him that when she’s being serious, “I’m sorry, for what happened to you.”

Bucky has to close his eyes to stop tears from forming there. He imagines that someone, somewhere in the army, had maybe said those same words, or thought them at least. But Bucky had been an absolute mess when he’d woken up in the hospital in Washington, and if they ever did, he doesn’t remember it. To hear it now it feels like a wave crashing down upon him almost drowning him, before he remembers he knows how to swim.

“Have you thought about getting in contact with the guy?” Nat continues.

Bucky gives Nat a look of consternation – of course he had. He’d had that thought about a million times ever since he woke up and found that he wasn’t dead. But all anybody had been able to tell him was that his team usually called him Captain America. It was a stupid, patriotic name, and presumably an in-joke, but it didn’t help Bucky much in identifying the man. Nobody had been able — or willing — to give him a real name. Just because he had this book now, didn’t really improve matters.

“Well sure, but it’s gotta be a pseudonym?” He supposes he could try to track him down through his publishers, but he probably wanted to remain anonymous for a good reason, and there’s no way his publishers would give his contact information out to a complete stranger.

“The book’s signed. Where did you get it from?”

Bucky immediately reaches forward to grab the book off the coffee table in front of them,  _ it’s signed? _ And sure enough, there on the front page, is a squiggle that looks like it maybe reads ‘Captain America’ and then there’s a dorky little sketch of a superhero-looking guy with a big ‘A’ on his chest. The drawing seems a little more personal than just a generic signing that an author would give to anybody, and suddenly Bucky’s wondering if Sam Wilson knows who this guy is. It wouldn’t be completed far-fetched, Wilson served as well, after all, perhaps their paths had crossed.

“Well, shit. I got the book off Sam, actually. Maybe…”

Nat just shrugs at him to agree, and this is what he likes about her — she doesn’t offer unnecessary words, doesn’t waffle on just for the sake of it, and the calm quiet that comes with that is extremely valuable to Bucky, or the Bucky he is now anyway. It had used to infuriate him when they were children — he was always trying to get a rise out of Natasha Romanoff but she would just stand there staring placidly back, refusing to react to Bucky’s baiting. He wonders if she misses that, the teasing and taunting that had used to run like a live current between them, wonders if the friendship they have now is good enough for Nat. He thinks that it is, that she’s changed too in the twenty years since they met, and somehow they’ve grown in tandem, supporting each other like vines up twisting across an old brick wall, rather than breaking away from each other, growing apart. 

The thought eats away at him when he’s lying in bed later — does Sam know the author? Or did he merely buy a signed copy from a book store? The latter explanation makes more sense, especially for a pseudonymous author, who obviously would not do live book signings, but might give signed copies to be sold. He wonders though, does he really want to meet this man? He’s wanted to for years now, wanted to be able to thank him, but he doesn’t know if he deserves it. Would it be awkward for Bucky to force himself on Captain Richards in that way? He’s chosen to stay anonymous after all, and that must include Bucky too, even though there had been that message for him on the very last page. And what if Richards disappoints Bucky? Having read his words which mirrored Bucky’s own thoughts about the military so closely, it seems unlikely, but what if he had someone ghost-write the book for him, and the poetic prose is not by Richards’ own hand, but someone else’s? Bucky doesn’t want to meet him just to be disappointed that he isn’t what he was expecting. Perhaps the words on the page are good enough.

Halloween had slipped by unnoticed on Friday, and when Bucky goes for a run again on Sunday, the rain is filling up pumpkins left abandoned on the streets. He takes a few side-steps to crunch through some extra crispy looking leaves, but his shins are hurting from the increase in mileage this week so he cuts his run short. He spends the rest of the day on the sofa with his laptop and a pile of textbooks. Nat is out with some friends, so he doesn’t feel bad about taking up the living room, especially since he’s using dictation software to write the paper he has due next week. Although he can type with one hand, writing a whole essay that way is a complete bitch, and so he normally dictates instead — the software is actually not bad, although sometimes it comes back with some pretty creative interpretations of Bucky’s speech. 

He’s feeling well-rested and in control of his emotional state as he heads into his medieval history class on Monday, so much so that he doesn’t notice Darcy sitting down next to him. 

“Hey Barnes, I heard about what happened in your politics class the other day.” Her voice is soft and nonchalant and it takes a second for Bucky to realise what she’s talking about. His international relations class, where he freaked out and had to go hide in Sam’s office for an hour. Bucky can feel his face going red in embarrassment before Darcy speaks again.

“Not like that! My friend Shannon, she’s in your class, she thought it was a pretty shitty thing for Zola to do. But, she said if you need the notes or anything, you can borrow hers, or she’ll scan them in for you. The offer’s there, if you need it. She wanted me to tell you.”

Darcy speaks way faster than any else that Bucky knows, and he wonders how she manages to get the words out so quickly without getting tongue-tied. Everything he does seems to be slower these days, his words only coming out when he’s really thought about them, figured out if they’re worth the effort of speaking aloud or not.

“I’m used to it,” he shrugs, “but thanks, tell your friend I said thank you.” He’s touched. It warms him to think that somebody he doesn’t even know was concerned, and not because they were judging him, or wanted the gossip, but just because it was a kind thing to do. “I wouldn’t mind a scan of the notes, if that’s okay?”

Darcy’s face widens into a smile immediately from where she’d been chewing on her lip, as if she was worried she’d offended Bucky. “Sure! I’ll let her know. Here, give me your email and I’ll make sure she sends them! You guys have a paper due, right?”

“Yeah. Not until next week though.”

As Professor Macleod calls for silence at the front of the hall so she can start the class, Darcy nudges a piece of paper over in Bucky’s direction, and he scrawls down his faculty email address. Darcy falls silent after that, but it feels nice to sit next to a friend for once, to know that someone else apart from Clint has his back on campus. Maybe this making friends business isn’t so hard after all. Darcy invites him to join her in a coffee shop to study afterwards, as they have a quiz in Intro tomorrow, and he finds himself wanting to say yes, not scrabbling for an excuse to get out of it, not needing to say no. They head to a Starbucks just off campus where they won’t feel guilty sitting for several hours and only buying one drink. He thinks he sees a familiar flash of blond hair — the same guy from the coffee shop on Saturday — but by the time his brain has registered it, the guy is already out of the door and Bucky can’t help but feel a tiny stab of disappointment.

As he walks the few blocks home later that afternoon he thinks that maybe he wants to try dating, wants to have someone to come home to that isn’t Nat, or someone to sit next to in a coffee shop and bump their knees together while they talk. He wants someone who’ll have his back when he needs it, yes in the very physical way that the men in his unit would have done — ready to protect each other to the death if need be; but also in that calm, emotional way, where they’d give him space if he needed it, or listen to him if he needed to talk. Someone to press up against on the sofa watching Netflix with, and someone to take to bed and take apart. Bucky’s never had that before, never had someone to share a bed with, has literally never had someone in his own bed. Back when he’d still been enlisted, his home had still been with his ma and two sisters, and there’s no way he would ever have brought someone back there with him, even if he wasn’t afraid of what his family would say once they saw that his choice of hookups was a man.

More than that, though, he’s never had someone just to share a bed with, where the possibility of sex is there, but where overwhelmingly it’s a warm body to curl in next to during the night, the presence of another person to help chase his demons away. He doesn’t know where he would start looking for someone like that, doesn’t know how he would explain  _ injured vet, both physically and mentally. _ How could someone be expected to share a bed with him when he’s liable to wake up screaming several times a week? Or worse, what if he lashed out at them, hurt them while they were sleeping when Bucky’s subconscious brain sensed danger in the darkness. How can he explain that to someone? Is he meant to be able to come straight out with all his issues on a first date, or just write it up in a dating bio like it’s the most casual thing in the world? He can’t lay himself out like that — call him a coward — but he can’t expose himself to a multitude of strangers in that way. He doesn’t know how to be vulnerable, doesn’t know if he’s capable of it.

He tries to put it out of his mind once he’s home, instead settles down on the couch with his books again. He manages to lose himself in his work for a good few hours — he feels well-prepared for tomorrow’s Intro quiz, and he’s nearly completely done with Carter’s WWI paper about the advantages and disadvantages of forced conscription in the UK. It’s a fascinating subject, one that Bucky grasps the intricacies of easily, despite having eagerly signed up to join the military after the events of 9/11. Even though it goes against his own beliefs, he can see why someone — scared, young, or with a family — would have wanted to avoid going to join a war that had lasted years. However, with all the propaganda at the beginning of the war, at least, it’s also far too easy to understand how many young men were roped into volunteering to fight in a war from which they would never return. Bucky understands that part a little too well also.

Nat still isn’t home from work by the time he heads to bed, but he knows that she often gets stuck with a big project or urgent business that leaves her working until past midnight, sometimes grabbing a few hours sleep in a break room to begin again only a few short hours later. He doesn’t envy her, knows he wouldn’t be able to cope with the high-stress aspect of her job, not anymore, but he knows that she enjoys it.

Being alone doesn’t help Bucky keep his thoughts away from dating again. As he’s lying in bed staring up at the ceiling, watching car headlights flash through his curtains as they pass, he starts thinking about dating apps. Back when he’d last been interested in hooking-up none of these swipe-right dating apps had really existed, but he thinks they might be the easiest way forward. He’s heard that Grindr is kind of only for hookups, but that people use Tinder for dating as well as booty calls. It wouldn’t be too hard to word his bio so that anyone bright enough could read through the lines about his past. Ex-military, army vet, mature student, something like that which would make any potential dates ask a few questions. That way he wouldn’t have to spell it all out in his profile, but if he liked someone enough to talk to them, then he could tell them the truth. He doesn’t want to drop the one-arm-bomb on someone as he walks through the door at the start of a date, but equally he doesn’t want to entice that fetish crowd, doesn’t want to attract anyone who has a thing for amputees, who would see Bucky as an object more than a person. The thought of someone being with him because of his arm, rather than it being a normal part of him makes his skin crawl. He spends over an hour tossing and turning in bed as he tries to compose a relatively normal bio in his head, and he dreams that he’s running along a computer keyboard, the letters flying up behind him as he runs and runs and runs, until they’re catching up to him and the keys are dropping down beneath his feet until he’s falling falling falling.

He wakes with a start, heart beating fast, but it’s okay, he’s okay. It’s just a regular dream, not a nightmare, not a flashback. He’s okay. In, out, in out, he focuses on settling his breathing back to normal before he glances over at the clock. It’s a little before seven a.m. and he knows there’s no chance of him falling back to sleep now. He doesn’t have Banner’s class — and the quiz — until ten, so he decides to go for a run. He bumps into Nat in the kitchen, and she’s already up and dressed and heading out the door for work. He chats with her briefly as they both walk down the stairs, and she promises that she won’t be back late tonight as well — they make plans to have pizza for dinner after he gets back from the VA meeting, and then she’s heading off towards the subway. Bucky keeps his run short, wary of his sore shins from the weekend, and he’s back and freshly washed before eight. He sits down at the kitchen table with a pot of coffee and his class notes, giving himself an hour to go over everything again. By the time he heads into campus he’s feeling good about this test, knows that he’s ready and it makes him happy to know that he’s doing okay at this, that going back to studying over ten years after he left school isn’t as difficult as he’d feared it might be. 

Darcy shoots him a quick hey as she bundles down into the seat next to him, but Bucky can see she’s still got a wad of notes clutched in her hand, still desperately cramming for the last few minutes before Banner turns up, so he doesn’t try to distract her with any small talk. He thinks that maybe next week he’ll bring her a coffee — she always comes into this Tuesday morning class looking stressed, even when they don’t have a test, and he wonders where she has to commute from. He knows she’s not like a typical student, and doubts she’s tired just because she’s been up partying, so maybe he could do something nice for her. That’s what friends are for, right?

Bucky whizzes through Banner’s test, exhilarated by how much he knows — he answers every question easily, even the extra credit ones, and fuck, it feels fantastic. He’s got that same high he got whilst running the other day, and he can categorically say that he’s happy to be alive, he’s happy that he survived and made it home to New York, so he could sit here today and take a history test. There had been many moments where he’d never thought he’d get something like this, simple though it might seem, and right now he’s just going to revel in that feeling.

He grabs a coffee with Clint before his next class in the afternoon, listens to the other man talk about his kid’s halloween costumes, and how they’d gorged themselves sick on candy all weekend. It makes Bucky smile, makes him think of Becca and Alice when they’d been little, when he’d been the one to take them trick or treating, and he thinks that maybe he should give his sisters a call. Becca herself is just out of college — nursing school — but Alice is starting next year. Bucky thinks that maybe he could help her out with her applications — he’d gone through them fairly recently, after all. Dr. Carter’s class in the afternoon is excellent as usual — she has a warning up on her first slide about some potentially upsetting content for the class, but being forewarned helps Bucky prepare for it, and in the end it turns out to be only footage of soldiers scrambling across no man’s land. It’s hard to watch, but it’s far-enough removed from Bucky’s own experiences, the contrast between the dust-scorched desert and the barren mud-scape of war-torn France large enough that it’s not too difficult to watch. He appreciates the warning all the same, although he knows that it isn’t just for his benefit.

He thanks Dr. Carter at the end, all the same, thankful for her concern for her students — college shouldn’t be about making students’ lives harder, even if that means trying to accommodate a few more requirements. He wonders why Professor Zola seems incapable of showing the same consideration, and hopes that he felt chagrined upon receiving Sam’s email last week. Bucky wouldn’t have had the guts to send something like that himself, would feel too insignificant as just one lone freshman student, but he’s pleased that Sam did have the gall to give Zola a piece of his mind. If it changes the man’s methods in the future, and helps out even one student, then Bucky’s glad for it.

After class, Bucky goes to find Sam in his office. He buys donuts en-route, the best way he can think of to say thanks that isn't horrendously awkward. 

When he gets there though, he finds the other man staring into space, lost to the world, and it's not until Bucky has knocked twice and cleared his throat loudly that Sam notices him.

“Oh, hey man. Come on in.” Sam strains towards a smile, but doesn’t quite make it.

"Hey Wilson, you okay?" 

Bucky doesn't want to pry, isn't even sure he knows the man well enough to demand personal information from him. But he'd helped Bucky in the midst of a flashback, he'd given him a way to calm down and climb out of it in peace, in safety. Sam Wilson didn't know him from the next guy, didn't owe him anything and yet still he'd helped him. Sam Wilson was good people and maybe it is Bucky’s turn to do something good. 

"Ye–" Sam starts to say, and then his face sort of twists, like his brain can't convince it to even get that simple word out. 

"Not really,” he sighs, running a hand over his face. 

Bucky looks behind himself at the door, contemplates dumping the donuts and bolting, before reaching back and closing it.

"I bought donuts. You wanna talk about it?"

Bucky hovers awkwardly for a moment before Sam nods jerkily, and then he lowers himself into one of the seats opposite Sam's desk. 

Sam blows out another heavy sigh before beginning to speak..

"Today should be my wedding anniversary."

Bucky schools his face, not letting his surprise show. He hadn’t known, why would he have though?

"I told you before, about my wingman, Riley? He was like a brother to me. No, he was my brother. We grew up together, and we'd always been there for each other, thought we always would be. We signed up together. But Riley, Riley had a sister too. And if Riley was like a brother to me, then Aisha was definitely not like a sister.

"God, we were fifteen the first time we kissed. And when Riley found out he was so mad. Honestly, it’s the only time I ever thought he was going to hit me.” Bucky can see a small smile playing around Sam’s lips at that.

“But he came round in the end. Could see how well we worked together. It made sense, me and Aisha. It just felt right. And then they were my people, you know, my brother and my love. 

“And then... Riley.” Sam blows out a deep breath. It takes a moment, but Bucky doesn’t interrupt. He can see Sam sinking into the story, the memories, and Bucky doesn’t want to take him out of that, doesn’t want to remind him of the actual here and now.

“Riley didn't come home. And it wasn't my fault but it damn sure felt like it at the time. Still does sometimes.” Sam lifts his eyes from where they’ve been staring at the woodgrain of the table, but he doesn’t look at Bucky. His gaze swings to stare out the window, but what he sees there is anybody’s guess.

“Aisha and I— all we could see when we looked at each other was him. All we could see was what we'd lost. And… It broke us. It broke our relationship.”

Bucky can see the tears forming in Sam’s eyes and he’s wondering if he should move, offer the other man some comfort when he starts speaking again.

“They were the two people who should have been there my whole life. And I lost them both.” Sam lifts a hand up, presses his fingers to his eyes to wipe away the tears there. “We were already engaged at that point. It was my final deployment — Riley’s too — we had the date set and everything, the whole thing planned for when we’d be back Stateside. And we never made it.”

Sam falls silent then, but Bucky still doesn’t think it’s his time to speak. Sam always gives so much to the VA, to his friends as well, as far as Bucky can tell. He gives and gives, and now it’s Bucky’s turn to listen. God, he’d had no idea though, can’t really imagine it. It had been bad enough losing his men, but if he’d lost his support at home as well, his family, he doesn’t know what he would have done. 

Sam starts speaking again, “I sit here on this date and it feels like. I don't even know. Am I selfish to say it's worse that Aisha's alive and not Riley? Because knowing that she's still out there, that she's fine without me, it kills me a little bit more every year. 

“She’s the love of my life and he's my brother. And today I just remember that I lost them both.”

When Sam falls silent this time, Bucky’s moving before he can doubt himself. He walks around to Sam’s side of the desk, and then he’s grabbing Sam by the arm, hauling him up out of his chair so he can hug him, so he can hold Sam tight and let him know that he’s not alone. 

It’s not enough. It’s barely even adequate, and Bucky wishes fiercely that he had two arms, just so he could hug Sam Wilson that little bit tighter. They stay that way for a long time, until the little hitches in Sam’s breathing have died down, until he speaks, voice raw and lost.

“Thanks. Seriously man, thank you,” Sam says eventually, and the sincerity in his words is profound. Bucky hadn’t done anything more than let the man talk, which is the very least Sam does, for Bucky and scores more.

Bucky just wishes he could do more.

Even after talking to Sam, he’s still got a couple of hours to kill before the VA meeting that evening and he knows that Clint has classes now so he doesn't bother texting him. His eyes feel a bit like glue from all the studying he's already done today and he can't be bothered to go to the library, so instead he heads to the nearest bookshop off-campus for a browse. He's running low on books at the moment, even queued up on his Kindle so he can at least get some ideas even if he doesn't buy any actual physical books.

He's been browsing for nearly an hour when he sees that same blond guy from the coffee shop. Bucky is holding a new copy of the book that Sam tucked under his arm; Sam’s copy is sitting in his backpack ready to give back to him later. He figures that the book has got him in it, he probably should own his own copy. He also wanted to see whether the copies here were signed, since it's the closest bookstore to the campus and likely that Sam would have bought his copy here. He's disappointed to see that the inside is clean, no scrawled handwriting and no doodle. Does that mean that Sam knows the guy, or did they have signed copies here when it came out?

He catches the eye of the blond who's browsing the science fiction aisle along with Bucky, and offers him a small smile in response. It's a harmless gesture, but if the guy smiles back then he might be interested. If he looks at Bucky like a deer in the headlights — which he is in fact doing — then Bucky is probably best moving away. Yup, he's moving away right now, aborting the movement his hand was halfway through making to pick up a book on the shelf in front of him. He turns and heads out of the aisle and towards the checkout before he can do anything else stupid, making it out of the store in record time. His heart is beating fast; he's encountered enough homophobes in his time that he has no intention of riling one up in a bookstore. Especially if he was in the military like Bucky suspected, then he could well be very aggressive about his — potentially repressed — sexuality. 

He shakes it off as he heads over to the VA meeting; it doesn't matter. They guy obviously lives round here, maybe even goes to NYU as well, but if he's a homophobe it's no skin off Bucky's back. He arrives at the building at the same time as Sam, and finds that he's happy to see him, that he's starting to consider Sam a friend. It feels strange, he hasn't had any friends — apart from Nat — since he lost his unit. Having some now is a novel experience. He's not sure what it says about him that most of the friends he’s been able to make are also vets; he doesn't think that's necessarily a bad thing, knows that at least they can understand the issues that he carries around with him every single day. Most civilians, they forget sometimes that things they don't see still exist, that PTSD is mostly invisible but it's always there, simmering under his skin. Often people will assume that because he doesn't have a service dog then he's okay, that it's okay to approach him from behind or touch him without his consent. If he's having a good day, sure, but if he's having a bad day, he's often worried how he might react, prefers to keep his distance instead. Sam or Clint would understand if he reacted badly, and they wouldn't approach him in ways he wasn't comfortable with anyway; not intentionally and even not carelessly. Other vets, Bucky has found, are always very conscientious about the invisible boundaries and barriers they all carry with them. 

“Bucky, glad you could make it,” Sam says as he holds the door open, and Bucky is glad that he makes no reference to the events of last week. They don't need to, and Bucky appreciates that Sam knows there's no need to make a big deal about it, just like he won’t make a big deal over what Sam had told him. It's almost routine for people like them, and that's okay, but there's no point blowing up about it or fussing too much. Get over it and get on with it. Otherwise you'll be left behind. 

“Hey Sam,” Bucky offers in response. He knows Sam doesn't need anything more, and that sets him at ease, knowing that Sam won't ask for anything more than he can give. 

They head inside together and Bucky helps Sam set up the room, putting the chairs out and setting out the coffee table. Once everything's in order and there's still fifteen minutes before the meeting is due to start, Bucky heads over to his bag and grabs the book out. 

“Thanks for letting borrow this,” he tells Sam, proffering the book. Sam looks surprised in response, eyebrows shooting up towards his hairline. 

“You finished already?”

“Yeah, over the weekend.” Bucky supposes that is technically true — he finished it on Friday morning and Friday was theoretically part of the weekend. So he's not lying.

“It was…” he doesn't want to say ‘good’ because it tore him apart, flayed him open, left him sobbing uncontrollably, but it was good for him to read that, to read about himself and be offered that absolution for his failure to protect his team. He wants to rip that final page out of his own, new copy and keep it in his pocket so the words are always there for him when he needs them. Maybe meeting Richards isn’t a good idea, anyway, even if Sam does know him. Bucky thinks that the man himself would probably not live up to the words on the page. 

“Tough read, right?”

Bucky’s expecting him to ask, he wants him to ask,  _ is it you?  _ But Sam Wilson, ever the kind, considerate hero, doesn’t put Bucky on the spot and Bucky can’t get the words out, can’t confirm to Sam what he probably already suspects. He’s the sergeant at the end of the book. If he outs himself to Sam now, he might not be able to close that door if Sam actually does know the author, and Bucky’s not sure what he wants in that regard. Better to keep quiet for now, see how he feels when he’s gotten used to the idea a bit more, when his first read of the book isn’t quite so fresh in his mind, because he knows he’s going to end up reading it again, that’s for definite. 

Bucky just hums and nods in response as Evelyn walks in the door, and Sam breaks off to chat to her briefly. He grabs himself a coffee and shuffles down to the end of one of the rows. His choice of seat probably radiates  _ don’t talk to me _ vibes, but right now that’s what he wants, so he keeps his head down and tries to sip at the too-hot liquid while he waits for everyone to arrive. After talking to Sam in his office last week he’d thought that maybe he might be ready to share, but now after reading the book, he’s too scared. Too scared that someone else might put two and two together, might realise him for the man who let his team die. Does he even know it wasn’t his fault? Some rational part of his brain tells him that’s the truth, but sometimes deep in his heart it doesn’t feel like that, doesn’t feel like he isn’t to blame. He feels the loss like a jagged, gaping wound that cuts straight across him and sometimes it’s protected and he can’t feel it so much, but sometimes he’s open and exposed, and it’s like an icy wind blows right into him leaving him cold and shaky. He’s not ready to expose himself like that to a whole crowd of people, not yet. 

Sam is already at the front of the room ready to start the session off, all the other regulars already in their seats — Clint had tipped him a sloppy salute on his way in, but he’d left Bucky some space for which he’s grateful — when the door swings open once again and a familiar blond head appears in the doorway.

“Sorry! Sorry I’m late. I’ll—“

“Come on in, Steve,” Sam replies, before the man can apologise further. And — it’s the guy. The blond from the coffee shop, and the bookstore, and — Bucky assumes — also the guy who was outside Sam’s office the other day when Bucky was having his meltdown. Sam  _ knows _ the hot blond. Oh this is bad, this is very bad. That means he’s definitely military, but surely not homophobic? Bucky can’t imagine Sam being friends with an asshole. Unless maybe they’d been friends since they were young or they’ve served together, so they were like brothers, but then this Steve guy was also a bit of a shithead but maybe he’d saved Sam’s life, so Sam put up with him regardless? Bucky stops his spiralling thoughts sharply, and instead tunes back into where Sam has started talking again.

“—it’s left me thinking about what war makes us into,” Bucky catches. “People will often call us heroes or, like the other day, thank us for our service, but what does that really mean? I was just doing my job, and sometimes I still feel like I wasn’t doing it  _ well enough.  _ Maybe I could have done more, and maybe if I’d been better then less people would have died. Why am I a hero just because I’m the one who survived?”

Bucky looks around, trying not to stare too openly at  _ Steve _ , but he’s right there in the corner of his eye, and he can’t tear his gaze away. He’s looking at Sam with rapt attention, and Bucky can see, can see in the set of Steve’s shoulders that it’s because he respects Sam. The words coming out of Sam’s mouth are important to Steve because he respects him, and Bucky is sure he isn’t projecting his own thoughts onto Steve, but can’t help agreeing. 

“What I think is important, though,” Sam continues, “is to remember that we can only control what we think about ourselves, and not how others see us. For some people, maybe they lost loved ones out there, or they’re still serving now, and they need to believe that the soldiers they see back on U.S. soil are heroes, that they are the good guys, because we’re just a stand-in for the people they’re missing. Or maybe someone just needs it because that’s what they believe about their country. It’s not our job to take that away from them, even if we don’t agree. I would never call myself a hero, and I’m sure there are others in this room who feel the same way, but knowing yourself and letting others see just one part of you is a different matter. Strangers in the street might see veteran, when really that is only one part of you. I think, coming up to Veterans’ Day, that’s something important for all of us to remember.”

Bucky can see several heads nodding within the crowd dispersed throughout the seats, including both Clint and Steve. He understands what Sam is saying, that they are often a symbol to people, but he still finds it incredibly hard to be thanked for his service, just wants to hide away on Veterans’ Day and not have to face anyone. With his missing arm and a glimpse of dog tags, strangers often rightfully identify him as a vet, and it’s one of the reasons why he likes keeping his hair long now, so it’s no longer regulation short, doesn’t give people another hint as to his past. It’s probably stupid, but he likes it long anyway, and that’s just part of the reason why. He likes that it’s long enough to hide behind if he needs to, capable of shadowing his expression when he’s feeling exposed. He thinks, also, that maybe he’d like someone to be able to grasp hold of it when— 

Bucky coughs lightly to himself, stopping that train of thought right there. He definitely does not need to be thinking about stuff like that during a VA meeting, especially not when hot coffee shop blond is sitting two rows away from him. There had been a guy, once, after his fourth tour, that he’d hooked up with in a club, who’d been more than happy to take charge with Bucky. The first time had been in an alleyway behind a club — Bucky had been safe, but it had been so damn dirty. The guy had held Bucky’s hair, which was just a shade longer than regs, tight in his hands as he’d fucked into Bucky’s mouth with absolutely no thought to Bucky’s own pleasure.

He’d felt used afterwards, and not in a good way, but that hadn’t stopped him going home with the same guy a few nights later. Once they were in bed together the guy had seemed to take far too much pleasure in holding his hand to Bucky’s throat, pushing against his windpipe a fraction too hard for a few seconds and then releasing him, only to do it again moments later. There had been a teasing smile on the guy’s face the whole time as if to say,  _ hey pal, this is just a game,  _ but there had been something in his eyes that had unsettled Bucky, that had told him this guy was enjoying the power dynamic a little too much. Bucky had left as soon as the guy had fallen asleep, and had never seen him again. Of course, it wasn’t much after that when he’d lost his arm, and he would hate to see what that guy would do now that he was physically much more capable of overpowering Bucky. It’s something that he thinks he might like though, if it was done properly, and having longer hair to pull against, that’s something he thinks might feel good. 

A guy who Bucky recognises from previous meetings has stood up to speak — Alan — and he’s now talking about how he finds it hard to accept the fact that his kids see him as a hero, when he knows the kinds of things he really did out there. Bucky can see Clint nodding along solemnly, and his heart breaks for both of these men. He feels the same way about his own actions, although he does know that they did some good out there too, but he can’t imagine how to explain the moral ambiguity of war to small children. He would quite like kids — someday — but hopefully when it’s all less fresh, when it hurts less. He wonders, once again, how Clint always manages to seem so calm and collected, when he must have so much underneath the surface, just bursting to come out. 

He glances over at Steve again and he’s still listening as attentively as he had been during Sam’s spiel. That’s another tick in Steve’s favour, and Bucky’s really starting to hope that he was wrong about assuming he was homophobic. Maybe he shouldn’t have run out of the bookshop so quickly earlier. A woman Bucky has never seen before speaks after Alan — she’s due to go back for another tour soon. She struggles with explaining it to her children as well, and also the guilt she has for leaving her children motherless for months at a time. The world doesn’t treat men in the same way, it’s often applauded if they go off to war, even if they leave young children behind. But Rachel has just been on maternity leave, and her baby isn’t even completely on formula milk yet — she’s had angry judgement from overly-zealous mothers before, telling her she wasn’t doing what was best for her kids.

Bucky looks at these three people who have spoken this evening, thinks about how on the surface they probably couldn’t seem more different, and perhaps if you saw them in the street you’d never guess they had much in common. Once you look past the superficial, you start to see that they’re struggling with the same battles, carrying the same burdens with them from the war. The army is a brotherhood (and sisterhood) that bonds people together even through the strong undercurrents that drag and pull beneath the surface, aiming to drown each and every one of them. That’s why they have meetings like this, to talk about these things, to share those experiences with people who fundamentally understand them. Bucky will speak at a meeting soon, knows that it will help him, he just needs to get there first.

He sticks around at the end, and he’s chatting with Clint about nothing in particular when Steve, hot stranger in a coffee shop  _ Steve _ walks up to them and introduces himself.

“Hi, I’m Steve Rogers. Nice to meet you.”

Bucky notices instantly that he doesn’t give a regiment, which is weird. Or a study subject, which means he isn't a student here? Bucky doesn't know, maybe he just doesn't like giving out his personal information to strangers. 

“Bucky Barnes, 107th infantry, freshman history major.”

“Infantry huh?” Bucky can tell that he's eyeing up his arm like he wants to ask but is too polite to do so. 

“Yeah, six tours. This,” he shrugs his left shoulder lightly, “cut my last tour short.”

Steve's face lights up with a smile and Bucky thinks he looks goddamn beautiful when he smiles. He is so fucked. He really really hopes that Steve Rogers, unit unspecified, likes men. “Me too! Not the arm — obviously — got both of my mine, but six tours and an injury.”

Bucky gives him a quick once over, trying (and failing) not to look like he's checking him out instead of looking for any obvious injuries. Although he knows full and well that the scars of war don't have to be visible to be real. 

“Yeah,” Steve looks abashed slightly, “not as bad, sorry. Just some… shrapnel I guess.” He says the last bit like it's a question, like he's somehow insulted Bucky by not having an injury as visibly serious as his. And Bucky, he’s not gonna take that.

“Hey, every injury is valid. You know that’s what Sam would say.” He gives Steve a wry smile and is rewarded with a small one of his own in return. 

“You know what? I think he might have said that to me once or twice,” Steve replies.

“What a surprise,” Bucky drawls, and he actually is surprised when Steve laughs in response.

“So, where you from Bucky?”

“Brooklyn, born and raised. Living near here now though.”

“No kidding.” There’s that smile again. “Me too.”

God, that smile might just be the death of Bucky. He wonders how soon is too soon to ask someone out on a date, or if it’s even appropriate to proposition someone at a VA meeting? If Steve isn’t queer and this is his regular meeting, then he may never be able to return. And the thing is, he’s actually finding that he likes it. He likes coming here, he likes hearing the thoughts and feelings of other veterans, seeing how they cope with certain things, how they deal with everyday life. He wasn’t ready before, when he tried; the war and his torture, it was all too fresh so that hearing about anything similar was too much, too triggering. But here and now, it feels like Bucky’s finally slotting into his place in the world, a place which includes socialising with other veterans, which includes not hiding away from his past, even the parts that hurt.

“—still live there actually, Brooklyn Heights.” Bucky realises he’s zoned out and missed the rest of Steve’s sentence, but he catches up.

“How come you’re coming to meetings here then? I know for certain there’s a group in Brooklyn…” Bucky doesn’t mean to sound accusatory, but luckily Steve takes it the right way.

“You’re right. I tried that one, and I don’t know. I know Sam, feel more at home here. It also gives me something to do, I’m sort of between jobs at the moment.” Again, that slight lilt at the end like he’s asking Bucky a question:  _ is that ok?  _ Or,  _ please don’t judge me? _

“I get you, pal. I tried that meeting too. Guess it wasn’t for either of us, huh? So you’re not a student then?”

“Thankfully no! Did my time back before I signed up, actually. Here at NYU even. I was actually a history and politics major, I didn’t want to sound too earnest before, when you said you studied history.” God, that bashful-Steve look is  _ definitely _ going to be the death of Bucky. He can’t help but wonder how far down that blush travels. It’s lighting up Steve’s cheeks, peeking up out of the collar of his shirt, and Bucky wants to follow that trail, have a closer look at the muscles he knows are under there.

Oh boy. He needs to get a grip.

“Oh cool, maybe you could give me some pointers sometime.” He doesn’t mean to say it, doesn’t mean for it to sound like a proposition, but he’s still thinking about Steve’s muscles, and his skin, and that goddamn blush that it just comes out, no filter at all. 

It seems like the gods are finally smiling on him though because Steve replies softly, “Yeah, I’d like that.” And Bucky thinks he might have forgotten how to breathe. Because men like Steve Rogers aren’t meant to look at Bucky like that, aren’t meant to give him soft smiles and bashful looks. All of Bucky’s soft edges have been worn away by years of harsh warfare, by the push and pull of military life, and by the prolonged torture that nearly ended it all. Bucky is no longer made for nice things, worries that he will only damage and bruise them, ruin them beyond all recognition.

But Steve Rogers, he’s been to war too, he has shrapnel in his body, and invisible scars too. He comes out to the NYU campus for the VA meetings because his friend Sam is there, and Bucky knows there’s more to it than simply being friendly, thinks that maybe it’s because Steve doesn’t feel safe sharing in a place where there’s no one who’s got his back. He thinks that Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes have a lot more in common than just a history major and a military background. He wonders how long it would take to discover them all, for the topic of conversation to run dry between them and he wants it, he wants to find out. Wants to see if they could start a conversation that might just last the rest of their lives.

He doesn’t know how though, he doesn’t know how to ask, or what he’d do with the answer. He’s never dated anyone before, and it fucking terrifies him that he wants to find out how, that he wants to ask out this man standing not two feet in front of him, if only he could figure out how.

“Hey, do you want to go grab a drink?”

Bucky blinks at Steve, wondering if he heard him correctly, or if somehow Steve has read his mind, or maybe he spoke out loud by mistake or—

“Sorry, sorry. I just thought—“ Steve is already retracting his question, that blush back in full force.

“No!” Bucky’s shout is so loud he sees Steve flinch slightly and he feels horrible. He reaches out his arm in placation, but stops short of actually touching Steve. “Not, no I don’t want to! I do. I do want to. Yes.” He is babbling, and this would probably be embarrassing if Steve hadn’t  _ just asked him out. Shit.  _ Bucky has no idea what he’s meant to do with this.

“Great.” That Steve Rogers smile is back. “How’s now for you?”

Now is very, very good for Bucky, very good indeed. 

Sam shoots them a weird look on their way out, waggling his eyebrows and gesturing slightly like that’s meant to mean something, and Bucky can’t tell if it’s directed at himself or Steve. Steve seems equally as clueless, so they head out, chatting about their Brooklyn childhoods and marvelling how they never crossed paths as youngsters. It transpires that Steve is a few years older than Bucky — they’d served for around the same amount of time, and Steve had been out for just over two years, like Bucky as well, but he’d been older when he’d joined, already graduated from university. 

Bucky’s happy to follow Steve’s lead to a destination, but feels a little uneasy when they draw up at a bar. He supposes he should have specified, but how do you explain to someone you only just met that you’re basically an alcoholic, and that you really really shouldn’t be having a drink, not even just one. It probably doesn’t matter. He can just order something non-alcoholic, it won’t matter. Steve asked him out for his company, surely, not his drinking prowess (or lack thereof, nowadays). 

He fixes his gaze on the back of Steve’s short, blond hair as he heads up to the bar, close enough to touch but without reaching out. For a Tuesday night the bar is very crowded and Bucky's skin is starting to feel too tight. He viciously dampens it down, he's about to be on a date — his first! — with a very attractive man; he will  _ not not not  _ let his PTSD get the better of him right now. He will win. 

Steve looks over his shoulder as they reach they bar and the smile he gives Bucky makes it all worth it. It's a smile that would be all-American wholesome if it wasn't for the mischievous glint sneaking in at the corners. Bucky likes that glint. 

“What you having, Buck?”

“Just a tonic for me!” He has to shout to be heard over the noise and for a second he thinks Steve hasn’t heard him, but then he nods.

“Go find us somewhere to sit, I’ll be back in a minute.” And he turns and squeezes himself through the throng of people crowded around the bar, all vying for the bartender’s attention.

Bucky backs out from the swell and heads over towards the corner. There’s a row of windows that look out onto the street and there in the corner where wall meets window, there’s a small table for two. It’s just below chest height, and there’s only one stool next to it, but it means Bucky can put his back to the wall and everything should be alright. He spies another stool at a table where three guys are drinking beer, and he heads over there to see if he can take it.

“Hey, are you using this?” 

“Nah buddy, go for— Bucky!” The man who had answered exclaims as he suddenly leaps up out of his seat, reaching out for Bucky.

_ Fuck. Does he know this guy?  _ Sometimes he doesn’t remember people from before, from when he was younger, information that his brain had deemed not-crucial purged from his mind over the years. When they’d been screaming at him for information in that cramped cell, sometimes the only thing he could remember was his own name. His rank. His serial number. He couldn’t have told them anything else anyway, because all knowledge had fled from his brain like leaves scuttling in the wind. Did he go to high school with this guy?

Then the man’s hand comes down on his neck and, as Bucky flinches away, he knows.  _ Brock.  _ Bucky had slept with this guy a couple of years ago, right before his last tour. He was the guy who’d seemed to enjoy holding Bucky down a little too much and now,  _ now,  _ he’s eyeing up Bucky’s empty left sleeve with a little bit too much interest. 

“Nice to see you!” His smile reminds Bucky of nothing less than a shark stalking its prey,  _ oh the shark has pretty teeth indeed.  _

This is not good. He glances back over towards the bar but there's now no sign of Steve’s obnoxiously blond head. He turns back to where Brock is staring at him. 

“Hey, Brock.” He just wants to grab the stool and get out of there but doesn't know how. 

“What you been up to recently? Guess you’re not in the army anymore huh?” His smile is more like a leer now and it's making Bucky extremely uncomfortable. His face feels hot and his missing arm feels like it's twitching, his absent fist unable to clench like he wants it to, nerves sending signals to dead ends. 

“Why don't you join us for a drink. You were always fun after a few drinks.”

God. Bucky can't believe he ever slept with this guy. There's no denying that he's attractive, designer stubble lining his jaw, but he is such a douche bag. Brock takes a step closer to Bucky and when he tries to back up he realises he’s already right up against the wall. Shit. Brock steps closer again and puts his hand on Bucky’s left shoulder and it feels sick it feels wrong it feels like no no no back in that cell and they’re coming for him again. They like to electrocute the mangled stump of his arm, charring the flesh, which has probably stopped it from getting too infected but also lights up his nerve endings like fireworks. He needs to get away but he's pressed down and he can't move. 

And then suddenly, the weight is gone. He hears his name,  _ Bucky? Bucky? _ But he doesn’t know who’s speaking. It’s not Brock though, he can see the back of Brock in front of him, bristling at whoever’s interrupted them. He’s getting right in the guy’s face, and it takes a few moments for Bucky to realise that it’s Steve. Steve Rogers in his button-down shirt and too-tight slacks looking like he’s ready to take on Brock, take on the world for Bucky.

Steve glances over Brock’s shoulder at Bucky, and something shifts in his expression, and then Steve’s pushing past Brock like he isn’t almost as big as him, 200 pounds of pure muscle, like he isn’t joshing for a fight. He’s right there in front of Bucky, and fuck, Bucky has known the man for two seconds, that look shouldn’t be on his face. It’s a look of deep concern, a softness of the eyes and a downturn at the corners of Steve’s mouth. It’s a look that says,  _ are you okay, love?  _ But that can’t be right, because they only just met, and this was their first date, but there’s never going to be a second one now, not after Steve’s seen him like this.

He can see that Steve’s lips are moving, but all he can hear is the noise of the bar around them and the  _ thumpthumpthump  _ of his own heart. He’d gotten so used to listening to that sound, sometimes the only thing he would hear for hours upon hours. Steve is still talking but Bucky doesn’t know what he’s saying, and then Steve is stepping even closer, eyes wide as they lock onto Bucky’s own as he raises his hands slowly. Steve’s got nice hands, hands that could span right across Bucky’s back, that could smooth over his skin. He’s got callouses at the base of his fingers, and Bucky thinks that the contrast would feel nice, would like to slot his own fingers against Steve Rogers’ own, and keep hold even when their palms have turned sweaty. The next thing that Bucky is aware of is Steve’s hands settling down on his shoulders and he’s bracing himself for the usual feeling of  _ wrongnotrappedstop,  _ but it doesn’t come. The weight of Steve’s hands on his shoulders is warm, and he can feel where Steve’s fingertips are lightly squeezing the tense muscles he finds there, but it’s not aggressive, it’s not controlling. It’s only a man he’s barely just met, looking at him with soft eyes and warm hands.

Steve says something again, and then he’s pulling Bucky forward slightly. Bucky resists, doesn’t want to expose his back to this crowd, to Brock, who he’s still aware of in his peripheral vision, although he seems to be sitting back with his friends now, disinterested in Steve and Bucky. But then Steve is moving around behind Bucky, hands twisting round until they’re resting on Bucky’s shoulders again, this time left to left, right to right. His hands are warm on his shoulders, leeching down into his bones and dispelling the cold that feels like it's been there forever. It feels good, to know that Steve is protecting his six, that he won’t let anything happen to them, and he’s okay now to be propelled forwards, Steve manoeuvring them through the thronging crowd until they’re stepping through the door out into the cool night air.

Bucky takes a great heaving breath, filling his lungs with the smell of New York, and autumn, with the faint hint of Steve behind him, filling his nose with the smell of all the things that aren’t pain, desert, blood. Steve is still propelling him forward, and he’s happy to be guided, until they come to a stop a block or two down, in front of a now-closed Starbucks. Steve lets go of Bucky’s shoulders and it feels like a loss. No one has touched his shoulder in the last two years without Bucky cringing away, without him feeling ashamed and sick. But Steve Rogers, somehow he has managed it, the weight of his broad hands lending Bucky strength rather than bringing out his weakness. 

He’s not sure if Steve is still speaking or not, can’t hear anything over the rush of his own blood, for once that’s good, it reminds him he’s alive, that he’s here. Without Steve guiding him any longer, his legs suddenly feel like jello, and he drops down to sit on the pavement, back pressed up against the Starbucks window, knees drawn up towards his chest. He focuses on breathing, thinks about the exercises he knows to help bring him back.  _ In-2-3, out-2-3,  _ he touches his fingertips to his thumb, hides behind his hair. What can he feel? The cold pavement, his fingers in rhythm. What can he smell? A trash can, a faint whiff of coffee, the subway snaking up through a grate. What can he hear? Steve, Steve Rogers,  _ it’s okay Bucky, you’re okay, you’re safe, you’re okay. _

“да. я знаю. Знаю.”  _ Yes, I know. _

He doesn’t even realise he’s spoken in Russian until he registers Steve’s perplexed, “Bucky? English?”

He huffs out a small laugh and looks up at Steve. It’s clear that he’s been running his fingers through his hair — probably as he’s waited anxiously for Bucky to emerge from his episode, and Bucky can’t help but think that he looks adorable.

“Yes, you beautiful man. I know English,” he says, still in Russian, a small grin on his face, and when Steve sees that he’s smiling his face goes from worried to relieved in the space of a second.

“You’re okay?” Steve asks. Bucky wasn’t really expecting judgement from a fellow vet, but Steve seemed so sure of himself that Bucky was almost a bit intimidated, if Steve himself hadn’t been so disarming.

“Yeah pal, I’m okay.”

That seems to be the sign that Steve was waiting for, as he drops down on the concrete next to Bucky, left side pressed up against him like they’re huddling for warmth. Which, Bucky surmises, they probably are, since they’re sitting on the freezing cold sidewalk in November. Steve doesn’t seem to be complaining though, and Bucky isn’t about to protest. It feels nice to have the warmth of Steve’s body seeping into his, reminds him of the warm weight of Steve’s hands on his shoulders earlier. He wonders what those hands would feel like on the rest of his body, and then swiftly hopes that Steve can’t see him blushing in the dark.

Steve’s speaking again, and Bucky closes his eyes and just lets Steve’s rich baritone wash over him. “A few weeks after I’d gotten back stateside for the last time, a few friends of mine from home tried to take me out to a bar. I’d missed my birthday, had still been in the hospital for it, and so I guess they figured it was like killing two birds with one stone — celebrating my return and my birthday together.” Bucky can feel Steve breathing steadily beside him, feel his chest expanding with his lungs, and he can almost imagine the vibration of the air, of Steve’s vocal chords as he talks. 

“I was on my second drink, and the bar was just starting to get busy when I felt myself losing control, or losing my grip on what was in front of me. I mean, look at me, I’m a big guy, but those two drinks after months and months sober whilst on duty had gone straight to my head. And my head? Well, that was still in Afghanistan, it was still looking out for IEDs and suicide bombers. I freaked out, like a full-blown episode, right there in a Brooklyn bar. My friends, of course, from school and college, none of them military, they didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to give me space. They were all crowding round me, shouting my name, shaking me, and I lashed out. Punched my buddy Jason right in the face. It was—“ A huge exhale. “It was bad, Buck. I just, don’t want you to feel bad, because I’ve been there, I understand.”

Bucky had never doubted that Steve understood, had seen it in the set of his shoulders when he was watching him listen during the VA meeting earlier. Hearing the words from him though, knowing that even when Bucky was having a full-on episode in a crowded bar, that Steve still hadn’t touched him without making it as clear as possible under the circumstances. That, that means something to Bucky, although he isn’t quite sure what.

Then he remembers what caused the freak-out, remembers the meaty hand of Brock on his shoulder, and that look in his eye as he surveyed Bucky’s missing arm. Brock had liked to be in control of Bucky, he can only imagine the scenarios that were running through his head now that Bucky only had one arm to resist with. Not that anything they’d done hadn’t been consensual, but that there had been an edge to Brock that had made Bucky uncomfortable, and had made him screw up the bar receipt with Brock’s number scrawled on it and drop it in the trash after that.

“I’m sorry, Steve.” To Bucky’s own ears he sounds tired, exhausted, but sitting here on the sidewalk is actually quite nice. 

“You haven’t got anything to apologise for.”

“I’m sorry for that guy getting in your face. He—“ He makes a small noise of disgust. “I don’t wanna say we dated, it really was way less than that. But we hooked up a couple of times.”

Steve bumps his leg closer up against Bucky, which he wouldn’t have thought was possible since they are already pressed side-to-side like they’re squeezed into a transport together, too many sardines in a tin can. Here, though, here it feels calming, equalising. Bucky likes the contrast between the cold concrete underneath, and the warmth of Steve to his right. There haven’t been many contrasts in his life recently, everything merging together in a grey same-ness.

“No offense, but he seemed like a douchebag.”

Bucky laughs. “Oh, he is. Let’s call it youthful indiscretion?” Then, quieter, “I’m sorry we didn’t get that drink.”

Now it’s Steve’s turn to look embarrassed, ashamed. “Oh god, I don’t know what I was thinking.” Bucky stiffens immediately. He knew it, he fucking knew it. That was too much to handle, Steve regrets asking Bucky out already and they didn’t even have a first date. But Steve surprises him, again, and quickly reaches out a hand to Bucky’s knee. “Not like that!” he almost shouts, voice hard, and Bucky can imagine what it would be like to take orders from Steve, in the field, or in bed. He shivers.

“I mean, I don’t know what I was thinking taking us to a bar? I hate crowded spaces, and I don’t even drink anymore, not really. It’s just, that’s what people do? Isn’t it? When they go on a date, they go to a bar, so I figured that was the normal thing. I can’t even do that right.”

Bucky inches his fingertips up his leg slightly, so that they brush against Steve’s where his hand is still resting on his knee. “Steve, Stevie, it’s okay. I’m having a good time now.”

“You are?” Steve turns to look at Bucky, eyes wide but huge, guileless smile right there on his face. “Because I’m freezing my butt off.”

They both laugh and god, it feels good. 

"I only live a mile or so away from here — just over the bridge," Steve continues, "do you want to come over for that drink? We'll go non-alcoholic this time."

That sounds absolutely perfect to Bucky, and he can't quite believe his luck. He's had a freak-out, and he hasn't scared Steve off. The other man hasn't even needed some breathing space, although he wonders how much this sit down was for his benefit and how much was for Steve himself as well? They haul themselves up off the floor and Steve leads the way down the darkened streets and across the Brooklyn Bridge. There are several people about but no one gives them so much as a second glance, and Bucky is glad for the walk, needs the time to regain his equilibrium. Steve stops in front of an old brownstone building and fixes Bucky with that same soft look from earlier.

"You don't have you come up, you know. We can do this some other time."

"No, I'm okay, I promise."

Steve just nods in reply, and holds the door open for Bucky. He's sure it should make him feel like some delicate dame, but Bucky can tell that Steve's just like that, that it was the way he's been brought up or whatever, not that he thinks Bucky needs coddling after the events earlier in the evening. He wonders what Steve thought of Brock and finds that he doesn't really care much. He's sure Steve must have some exes in his life, what matters is the here and now, and right now, Steve is leading him over towards one of those old-fashioned elevators that actually works.

“You okay with the elevator?” Steve asks, and Bucky’s heart melts all over again, at this small consideration, that Bucky might not want to be in a confined space, not now, not ever. He finds that he doesn’t mind though, doesn’t mind the thought of being in an elevator with Steve. He’s starting to notice that a lot of his caveats already don’t seem to apply to Steve Rogers.

"Oh man, I am jealous.” Bucky says as he nods at Steve. “The one in my building never works!"

Steve laughs, and the rich sound echoes round the building lobby, "You know, it's normally permanently broken, but right now it's been fine for a few weeks and I'm getting more and more anxious every time that I use it.”

Bucky shakes his head, a smile on his face. "Are you sure you want to risk it now, then?”

And as Steve reaches forwards to crank the elevator door shut, he glances over his shoulder at Bucky, a fire in his eyes. "Oh, I'm sure we can think of something to pass the time if we do get stuck."

Bucky is pretty sure that Steve means exactly what was implied in that sentence, and he's also pretty sure half the blood in his body just rushed to face. Oh dear lord. They haven't even kissed yet, and Bucky is altogether certain that Steve Rogers is going to be the death of him. The elevator clunks up to the third floor, and Bucky doesn't know where to look. He's pretty sure his face is still red, and his stubble really won't be doing enough to hide the blush. He's not sure he minds. 

Steve unlocks the door to a small, but homey apartment. They've walked into an open plan kitchen-living room, with a comfy looking couch taking up most of the space. There's a small wooden coffee table in front, littered with magazines and coffee cups, and the large window looks out onto the fire escape and the street below. There's a soft-looking blanket folded over the arm of the couch, and Bucky can imagine spending lazy Sunday mornings lying on the sofa, wrapped up in that nice worn blanket, feet tangling together with Steve's as they drink their coffee. He doesn't think he's being unrealistic, to hope for that, and right now that seems like something he should at least be able to hope for. Bucky slips off his shoes after Steve does the same, leaving them in a neat line next to the door, and it makes something flutter inside him. He drops his backpack down as well — glad that it hadn't slipped off in the bar, it had still been swung over his shoulder even as Steve had guided him out, otherwise he's certain it would be lost in the corner of that bar now. 

"Take a seat, make yourself at home," Steve calls as he heads into the kitchen, "what do you want to drink? Soda? Tea?"

As Bucky slumps down onto the sofa, the cushions give out a waft of scent that reminds Bucky of home so suddenly that he's inexplicably blinking back tears. Shit. He cannot start crying on Steve's sofa.

"Tea would be awesome, actually." God, he's has no dating cool, he's sat on Steve's sofa waiting for a cup of tea like a ninety year old man. He looks around for something to distract himself and to stop his emotions from getting the better of him, when he spots a copy of  _ At War with America _ hidden under all the random magazines. Had Steve read the book? He'd thought that Steve had given his arm a strange look when they'd been introduced earlier, but assumed it was because it is noticeable, and intriguing, Bucky supposes. Everyone always wants to ask, and Steve hadn't. Bucky likes that Steve hadn't. But maybe he hadn't had to ask because he'd already put two and two together, had already made his own assumptions about who Bucky was and what had happened to him. He wonders if there's a subtle way of asking without revealing himself. He thinks that if this goes somewhere, he will tell Steve, but torture is a bit of a heavy topic for a first date, especially after the evening they've already had.

Steve comes back in to the living room as Bucky is thumbing through the final pages of the book, fingers tracing those closing lines as the book rests on the coffee table. Steve sets two steaming mugs of tea down, and sinks into the sofa next to Bucky.

"Have you read it?" he asks, gesturing towards the book. There's something in his tone of voice, and Bucky knows what's coming, the question.

"Yeah. Last week actually."

"What," Steve licks his lips anxiously, "what did you think?"

And that isn’t the question Bucky was bracing for "Yeah... It was good, better than I was expecting, actually. Those books are never honest, but this one, it tells the truth for once."

Steve doesn't reply for a few moments, tries to take a sip of the clearly-still-too-hot tea before speaking. "You really think so?"

"Well yeah, sure. Haven't you read it?" 

Steve tries to take a sip of his tea again, swears lightly when it's still too hot. Bucky wants to know why Steve is stalling. 

“I— actually, I wrote it.” Steve admits, bashfully, and that flush is back in full force, but now Bucky thinks it looks blotchy and ugly, spreading over Steve's skin like a rash. 

What.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry not sorry for that cliffhanger. Final chapter will be up on Saturday!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for mild (and brief) homophobia.

Bucky knows his own face is turning red in response, knows that he must look completely dumbfounded. Steve is… Steve is Captain Richards? How is this even possible? Surely Bucky would have recognised him, the man who saved his life? Or vice versa; why doesn't Steve recognise him? Is he playing Bucky in some way? Is he looking for Bucky’s gratitude, his thanks? Is he annoyed that Bucky isn't hero-worshipping him? Or does he not know? Will he be horrified to realise that Bucky is the man he saved? He looks different now, a lot healthier for sure, although the arm is a bit of a giveaway. But missing limbs are not unusual among military personnel and there had been more of an arm and less of a stump when he'd been rescued, he had lost more of it in the hospital as they'd fought to cut out the dead and infected flesh and stop it from killing Bucky. 

He's been silent for too long and he needs to say something but the words are stuck in his throat, trapped like he was in that cell. 

“I'm kinda hoping you're not about to tell me you hated it now?” Steve tries to make light of the situation and that, more than anything, tells Bucky that he doesn't know. 

“No, I really did love it,” Bucky croaks out, reaches his hand up — his one remaining hand — to cover his eyes so he doesn't have to look at Steve as he says this next part, “that book, meant so much to me because— because,” he just needs to say it, “it's me, Steve, the sergeant at the end. You rescued me.”

There. It's out, and there's nothing Bucky can do to take the words back as they hang there, leaving silence in their wake. The silence goes on for far too long and Bucky can't bear it any longer. He looks up at Steve, trying to gauge the expression on his face, but he can't decipher it. Steve's mouth is still hanging open and his eyebrows are drawn down into a frown. Is he angry at Bucky?

"I'm sorry— I’m— I have to go.” Bucky manages to choke out.

Bucky grabs his backpack and his shoes, not even stopping to put them on, and he's out the door before Steve even has a chance to respond. _ Fuck fuck fuck _. He shouldn't have told him. Now he knows how damaged Bucky truly is, and it's no wonder he wants nothing to do with him. He quickly shoves his feet into his shoes before he's stumbling down the stairs, trying to pretend to himself that those aren't tears blurring his vision. It's for the best that it happened now, before he got too attached; the truth would have been out once Steve saw him naked anyway, saw the burn scars on his chest. 

As he hits the street a sob escapes from deep in his chest, and he wishes this didn't hurt. He doesn't even know Steve, had only met him tonight. But then again, that's not true. This is the man who saved his life, whose words had resonated so much with him, and whose obsession with finding Bucky and his team is the only reason he's here right now. He's alive because of Steve Rogers, and to be rejected by him cuts so deep it feels like an actual wound.

He doesn't register his name being called until a hand grabs him roughly by the shoulder. He lashes out immediately, right fist coming round to clock the interloper squarely round the jaw. He realises a second too late that it's Steve, and by then his punch has already connected, spinning Steve's face round to the side.

"Fuck, that's one hell of punch." Steve says immediately, hand coming up to rub against his jaw. 

Bucky states at Steve like he's some sort of mythical beast. Why is he here? 

“Buck, I'm sorry. Please come back inside.”

Bucky is pretty sure he must be in some sort of alternate universe. He's the one who should he apologising. For not being what Steve was expecting, for being broken, for literally just socking Steve around the face. He doesn't understand. 

“Please don't leave.” Steve's voice breaks slightly on the leave, as if it would be the worst act imaginable for Bucky to walk away from him now, and it doesn't make any sense but Steve Rogers is standing here on the cold New York Street with no shoes on his feet, begging Bucky to come back with him. It doesn't matter that Bucky only met this man properly for the first time tonight, because the man standing in front of him saved his life, has already worked his way under Bucky's skin and infiltrated his soul with his words on paper. Bucky finds that he can no sooner deny Steve something than stop breathing. 

“Yeah, yeah okay.”

He follows Steve back inside and he's surprised that he doesn't feel apprehensive in the slightest. He should be nervous, surely? But it feels right, somehow, to be walking back into Steve's home, to toe off his old sneakers and sink back into the couch. His tea is still there on the coffee table and he's surprised to find it’s still warm — barely ten minutes could have passed since Steve had boiled the kettle. Steve sits down next to him, rotating so his knees are pressed up against Bucky's leg and he's facing him. 

“Bucky, I’m sorry I let you leave like that. I'm sorry I made you feel like you weren't welcome here. You took me by surprise.” Steve's sincerity oozes out of every word and Bucky finds himself blinking back tears again. “I'd thought—even though I'd hoped—I always thought you were dead. That soldier that we'd rescued, god — you! You were in such a bad state that I couldn't bring myself to believe you’d survived, it seemed impossible. And then no one could ever tell me anything and I just always believed the worst. I never expected that— that I would meet you, or that you, you yourself would be so, so compelling. I can't believe you’re the same person.”

Steve wipes a hand across his face and breaks his eye contact with Bucky, looking past him out to the window beyond. “I lost faith in that war a long time ago, and searching for you, god, saving you, gave me a purpose. You gave me something to believe in, and I left that war knowing I'd done at least one good deed. Even if— even if you were dead, I'd given those families, your family, their dead to bury. I'd given them answers. And god, I fucking prayed that you were alive, but I never really dared dream it was true. I thought by writing those words in my book, by addressing those words to you, I could maybe make it come true. And here you are, sitting on my sofa, telling me you loved my book.”

Bucky finds that his face is wet, the salt taste of tears on his lips. Steve Rogers had prayed for him, and he doesn't believe in God, never has done, but if a good man prays for him, then he can't be so terrible. Can he?

“You look so good, so healthy. I can't believe you’re the same person. The soldier we rescued was a skeleton, a dead man somehow still breathing, stubbornly holding on to life like he had a point to prove.”

Bucky laughs, a short wet sound which must be the most unattractive thing ever and he reaches out blindly to grasp Steve's hand in his own. “You know, you're not the first to call me stubborn.”

Steve grasps back tightly and laughs as well and it's infectious until they're both laughing so hard that they're crying. 

“I cannot believe you’re here,” Steve says in a tone of voice that can only be described as wonder. 

“I can’t believe you're Captain America!” 

Steve groans at that one. “Oh god. Is that what they told you? I hate that stupid name.”

Bucky's smile increases at that admission. “Oh, so you’re not the great all-American hero? I think your publicist would disagree with me. What about your adoring book fans?”

“Shut it you. My squad used to think it was hilarious, they still do. My birthday's on the 4th of July.”

Bucky hoots in laughter. “Oh man, that's amazing. You really are America’s hero. We should get you a cape! A nice helmet.”

“Yeah, well I'll get you a wooden arm like a fucking pirate.” He's pointing his finger warningly at Bucky and the faux-stern look on his face just sends Bucky into more peals of laughter. 

“Pirates have wooden legs, legs Steve!” Bucky cannot stop laughing and his sides are aching and he doesn't think he's ever felt this good in his entire life, sitting here laughing on Steve Rogers’ sofa. “Captain America, here to save the country from pirates!”

“Oh yeah, oh yeah?” The look in Steve’s eye has changed again, it's still teasing but there's steel to it. “Would America’s hero do this?” And then he's leaning forward and pressing his lips to Bucky's. 

Every muscle in Bucky's body freezes like it can't quite believe what's happening, like if he moves he might break the spell that's been woven over this moment and has resulted in Steve kissing him. But then Steve's tongue licks lightly against Bucky's lips, and they open up automatically in response, his body knowing what to do even if his mind is drawing a complete blank. This is so beyond anything he's ever experienced before. The smell of Steve is all around him, in the apartment, the blanket strewn next to him, the skin underneath his fingertips. Somehow Bucky's fingers have already found their way under Steve's shirt, tracing the warmth they find there and every one of Bucky's senses is overwhelmed. 

This, this is what people write songs about, what they go to war for, what they die for. The feeling of Steve’s lips against his own, their tongues twining together, is the greatest thing Bucky has ever experienced, a whole world beyond a quick orgasm in a dark alleyway. He can't believe he's been denying himself the chance at something like this for so long. But maybe he had to go through that to get to here, couldn't even have been here if not for Steve Rogers, the man beneath his fingertips and under his tongue. If he'd been dating someone else, maybe he never would have been at that VA meeting, maybe he'd never even have met Steve.

His fingertips are still wrapped around Steve's side, tracing circles into his skin when he feels Steve's own fingertips at the waistband of his jeans— 

"Wait. Wait— stop.” He breaks away sounding like he's run a marathon, breathing heavy and labored. Steve's cheeks are flushed and his lips are red and puffy from where Bucky had been biting at them lightly.

"Sorry, sorry, I—“ Bucky apologises, although he doesn't quite know exactly what he's apologising for, just that this is too much, too fast, and the touch of Steve's lips against his own is the most overwhelming experience of his life.

"No, no, I'm sorry. Too fast, I get it."

Bucky is so thankful that Steve isn't pushing the issue but he still feels ashamed. He feels like some stupid virgin at prom, worried that the football player is going to deflower him, but it kind of feels like that. This is the first time it's ever meant something, and he's terrified, because if he's feeling this much now, what will it be like six months down the line, a year? What will it be like once Steve realises how broken he is, how damaged, once he has enough of Bucky and his issues and walks away. What will Bucky be left with then?

He knows he shouldn't be feeling like this on their first date, but it's like he can actually see all the possible threads of the future stretching out before him, and he can see which ones snap and break, which ones wear away into nothing, and in all the tangle he can't see that one good thread which stays strong, which carries on. He can only see all the things that can go wrong, all the things that are wrong with him. He doesn't know how to just let himself be, always having to question and worry, the anxiety threatening to drown him, his one constant companion ever since he returned home. He doesn't know how to let himself enjoy a touch that is not designed to hurt, that is not designed to maim and injure. Steve's hands on his body are careful yet strong, and that strength scares him — he knows what strong hands can do to his body, is waiting for that drop. He doesn't know how to enjoy a touch that is full of care. 

"I'm sorry Steve, I have to go." His head is such a mess right now, and he doesn't want Steve to see that. He wants this, he wants this so badly that he can feel it like an ache in his chest, like a sharp pain in the palm of his hand where he wants to reach out and touch. He wants this, but knows he has to take things slowly or else he'll only be able to see his captors when he closes his eyes, will only be able to feel their hands on his body, touching him again and again, always without his consent and always designed to hurt.

"You don't have to. It's late, you can stay. I'll take the sofa, nothing funny, I swear." And Bucky believes him, believes earnest, caring Steve Rogers who might not be America's hero, but he's something to Bucky all right. Not that Bucky wants to put Steve on a pedestal. Yes, Steve had saved his life, and that's maybe why this connection feels so strong, but that's not why he likes him. He likes his broad expanse of his shoulders, the blush on his cheeks, he likes the quiet way that he understands, but the wicked way that he smiles, he likes the softness underneath it all, that tells him Steve has suffered too, that he needs to be gentle with him even though he seems so strong and sure.

Steve may have saved his life two years ago, but he's not here to save Bucky's life now. Bucky is doing fine, he's doing good. His life is where he wants it, and he doesn't need a savior, and if he stays here right now in Steve's apartment, he'll be trapping Steve into that role. He doesn't need someone to save his life anymore, but he might just need someone to share it with. And in order to do that, for this thing with Steve to grow beyond a mere possibility, he needs to leave now, he needs to give himself some space and just remember how to breathe air that isn't heavy with the smell of Steve Rogers and his apartment all around him. 

Bucky trusts that Steve wouldn’t try anything if he stayed here tonight, but it’s not about that. It’s about looking after himself, and actually doing this properly for once in his goddamn life, so it actually has a chance of working out. 

“Nah, I gotta get home. Early class tomorrow.” He gives Steve a smile and a nonchalant shrug as he stands up to lessen the sting of his words. He really would like to stay and keep kissing him.

“Sure.” And the easy way that Steve accepts that warms Bucky unexpectedly. “Can I get your number?”

Bucky double-takes from where he’s putting his shoes on again — he hadn’t even thought about that. Steve has literally seen him at the worst point of his life, has seen him have a PTSD white-out today, and yet doesn’t have something so simple and normal as his phone number. He reels it off quickly, a “You’d better call me, Rogers,” on his lips as he lets himself out. He’s barely made it out onto the street again when his phone starts buzzing in his pocket and he takes it out to reveal a number he doesn’t recognise.

“I forget something?” he drawls into the phone, smile breaking out.

“Yeah, you forget to give me a goodnight kiss.” He can _ hear _ Steve’s answering smile on the other end of the line. 

“I’m pretty sure I gave you one of those. If I recall correctly,” Bucky answers as he heads down the street towards home. He’s about 12 blocks away, which is a short enough walk that he doesn’t have to worry about getting on the subway or jumping in a cab. 

“You know, I really don’t remember. Perhaps you could refresh my memory sometime?”

“Perhaps I could,” Bucky laughs in return. “You asking me out, Steve?” Steve _ is _ asking him out, of that Bucky’s certain, but god this teasing feels so fucking good, so light and easy. 

“Yes, I am, Bucky. What gave it away?” Steve’s sardonic tone is apparent even through the phone and it delights Bucky endlessly.

“I’m just smart like that, you know?” 

“I’m sure you are, pal. Are you free tomorrow?” Bucky had wondered if he was being too earnest since he’d wanted to ask Steve the same thing as he was leaving the apartment, so he’s glad to hear he’s not the only one. 

“Not really, got a big paper due Thursday. Sorry.” He holds his breath after he’s spoken, worried that Steve will get annoyed. It’s completely irrational because already he knows Steve isn’t that type of person, but he’s _ never _ done this before, and he really doesn’t want to fuck it up. 

They arrange to meet after the VA meeting again, and Bucky wonders if it would be clichéd to say that he’s walking on air for the rest of his way home. He’d texted Nat earlier telling her not to expect him back early, and when he lets himself in the apartment is dark and quiet, Nat’s door closed. He eases the door open slightly and for a moment just hovers there in the hallway listening to Nat’s slow breathing as she sleeps. Back when they’d first moved in together, he’d often had to crawl into bed with her, extending a foot towards her calf as a point of contact between them, unable to touch any more than that, but needing something to anchor him to the here and now, to connect him to Nat as she slept next to him. He hasn’t needed that in a while, but sometimes he needs to check in on her for a moment, check that she’s sleeping soundly, that everything’s okay. It helps to settle his mind, makes him think about mundane, normal things.

Except his mind isn’t on mundane normal things, not tonight. His mind is on Steve Rogers. Impossible, kind, brave, and incredibly attractive, Steve Rogers. How his lips had felt against Bucky’s, and how warm his skin had been. Bucky loves the cold much more nowadays, but if the heat comes attached to Steve, well he’s willing to make exceptions. He would happily burn in the fire for eternity. But no, he won’t. Because that’s not healthy, and that’s exactly why he left that apartment when he did. He doesn’t want his whole life, his whole mind, to suddenly be consumed by Steve Rogers. Bucky is in a really good place right now; he has a good apartment, good friends, and he’s studying for a degree like he’d always wanted to. That he also wants Steve Rogers is important, but it’s not the only thing, and he refuses to drown in this, to let it overwhelm him. 

Surprisingly, he sleeps well that night. He supposes that the adrenaline spike from earlier in the evening — meeting Brock in the club, and the all-the-more-pleasurable adrenaline from later in the apartment with Steve — had worn his system out to exhaustion, letting him sleep peacefully, unencumbered by his nightmares. He’s still amazed that Steve hadn’t run a mile when he’d come face to face with Brock. Steve handling his freak-out was understandable though, he was ex-military after all, and Bucky can tell just from the way that he handled the situation that Steve is personally acquainted with the issues that PTSD can cause. Maybe his isn’t as severe as Bucky’s — he has absolutely no way of telling right now — but he’s certain it’s a conversation they’ll have at some point if this keeps going like he hopes it will.

He never would have brought his own trauma up on a first date, not in a million years, but running into Brock, and then Steve’s admission about the book, well, it had been necessary. Bucky’s glad though, glad that he hadn’t gone any further with Steve before finding that information out. It’s not that he minds, not at all, especially not after having read the book himself; it makes him feel safer, reminds him that he was worth saving. It’s something that he’s learning anyway, but some days he needs reminding of that fact more than others. 

Nat’s in the kitchen when he stumbles over to the coffee machine in his bare feet, and she takes a moment to brush a kiss lightly on the top of his head. It reminds him of his mother kissing him goodnight as a young boy, and his heart swells with affection for Natasha. She’s like another sister to him, but closer even than Becca is, especially since he came back from war a different man to the one who left all those years before. He doesn’t know if he’s meant to feel guilty about that, both how he’s changed, and how he clings to Nat more than he relies on his own family. He knows, though, that Nat needs him too, though she would never, ever admit it, on pain of death. Her own parents have been dead for years and Bucky is her only family now. They are in this together, but then again, they always have been ever since the day they’d first met.

Nat, thankfully, allows him to drink almost half of his coffee before she pounces on him. “So, I didn’t notice you come in last night…” There’s an evil glint on her face, but Bucky finds that he really doesn’t mind. He wants to share this with Nat, but he’s not above making her work for it first.

“Mmm?” He sips his coffee and doesn’t speak.

“But then I see you’re wearing your pyjamas, and your hair’s a mess, which means you did sleep here eventually.” Her eyes narrow. “You told me you were going for a drink after the VA meeting. Do you know what struck me as odd about that?”

Bucky fights to hold back his grin. “I’m sure you’re about to enlighten me.”

“Firstly, I know that Clint always leaves promptly in order to get home and see his kids before they go to bed. And secondly, James Buchanan Barnes, the second part of that excuse which seemed a _ little _ thin to me, is that you don’t drink.”

Bucky is full-on smiling now. “Nothing gets past you, does it?”

“Spill, now.”

“I went on a date. With Captain Richards.” Bucky delights in Nat’s mouth hanging open for a few seconds, speechless. He so very rarely gets to see her like this. 

It takes a few seconds before Nat shakes her head and speaks. “Sorry, what?”

“Obviously that’s not his real name, but I met him at the VA meeting last night and it was a bit of a disaster actually. But it came up. And I told him, and yeah. We’re going out again on Thursday.”

Nat is still standing there looking at him, absolutely flabbergasted. Which is not usually a word he would use for Natasha Romanoff, it’s too imprecise, too loose, but here she is, flabbergasted. He takes pity on her, and gives her a full, quick re-cap of the events of yesterday. It was a disaster, it really was. From running into some creepy guy Bucky has had sex with before, to him having an episode, to finding out Steve was the author, and leaving the apartment in tears. This whole thing could have crumbled before it even started at any one of those moments, but somehow, miraculously, it had survived, is surviving. He is going out with Steve again on Thursday. 

As if summoned by his thoughts, his phone chooses that moment to buzz obnoxiously on the counter where he’d left it.

**Steve:** _Good luck with your paper! Hope it goes well :)_

There’s a little smiley face at the end — not an emoji — an actual smiley face and Bucky smiles at it, wondering what decade Steve Rogers is still living in. But the smiley has achieved its goal, he supposes, since there is a smile on his face and Nat’s looking at him like he’s a thing of wonder, as well.

“Bucky Barnes, are you smiling about a boy?” That teasing tone is back, but the affection in Nat’s voice more than makes up for it. A huge smile is blooming over her face as well as she looks at him.

“Yeah, yeah alright Romanoff. We’re not in tenth grade anymore. Shouldn’t you be at work by now?”

Nat glances at her watch and swears, dropping her coffee cup into the sink with a loud clang. 

Bucky heads into campus not long after Nat leaves for his second Intro class of the week. Darcy’s not there today which means he ends up sitting by himself. He really doesn't mind though, more than happy not to have to sit near anyone he doesn’t know, and he enjoys Banner’s class as usual. After grabbing a strong coffee when the class ends, he spends the rest of the day making notes for his paper in the library. It's for Carter’s class and he wants it to be good, wants to impress her. However, as the day goes on he notices the whispers around him in the library increasing, and he can't help but notice that they seem to be concentrated around him, or about him. It makes him uncomfortable and he packs up early and heads home, mindful of the stares and the susurration of whispers that follow him out. 

Once home he settles down on the sofa again with his essay, which he actually manages not to distract himself from. He'd done most of his reading by the time he left the library anyway, so being at home means he can freely use his dictation software as he starts writing. An hour or so later he notices that Darcy has responded to his message from the morning, asking if she was okay or if she needed the notes from class. She's keen for a copy of Bucky’s notes, unsurprisingly, since he knows his are good, and he’s happy to lend them to Darcy. However, it’s the rest of her message that makes him really pay attention.

**Darcy:** _also dude, a girl in my economic 101 class wrote an article about you. i guess she’s in your politics class with shithead zola? here http://bitly.com/2nfsls. _

Bucky really doesn’t know what to expect when he clicks that link, but it certainly isn’t the student newspaper, or an article headed ‘We must make our campus safer.’ He thinks back to the stares and whispers in the library earlier, wonders what the hell this girl can know about him. Has she made the connection between him and Steve, and their real identities? No, that doesn’t make any sense — Steve’s book is written under a pseudonym and anyway, he’s got nothing to do with the university. With trepidation, he starts reading.

_ You’ve heard it all before, I’m sure. That campuses across the US are being subjected to the political whims of students. Statues are being torn down, racist, anti-feminist, homophobic, or just downright shitty speakers are being refused a platform to speak, and safe-spaces are being established. What nonsense the masses cry, back in my day we just got on with things! Stop pandering to these students, they won’t get this kind of coddling in the real world! _

_ Well, let me tell you two things. Firstly, I agree; but secondly, you’re wrong. _

_ I think that some demands are falling dangerously close to wrapping oneself in bubble wrap and pretending that nothing bad exists in the world. I think that if we choose not to listen to hate speech, then we have no way to defend against it, no hope in hell of educating people, of helping them grow into more rational and open human beings. I think if we tear down our history, then we risk repeating the same mistakes again and again. But I equally believe that statues that pay homage to our racist forebears have no place on our modern campuses. How can students of color feel welcomed, if we are overshadowed by memorials to the very men that tore our ancestors from their homes, and denied them their heritage and culture? _

_ We must remember that this modern kickback is precisely because we have become more enlightened, more accepting of all the diverse kinds of people in the world. And so, I come, to trigger warnings. Yes, those. I can hear you sighing from here, hear the cries of ‘special snowflake’ and ‘get a grip’. So instead of trying to argue that yes, all trigger warnings are equally valid, let me tell you a story about invisible illnesses, and why trigger warnings are a vital part of equal-opportunities learning. _

_ There’s a guy in my International Relations class, taught by Professor Zola. This guy is quiet — I’ve never spoken to him — and anything I know about him is second-hand knowledge. What I do know is this: he’s an army vet, and he only has one arm. That second thing, I noticed pretty much straight away, the first I learnt from a comment he gave in class once. He doesn’t ask for special treatment, doesn’t have any special tech or equipment to help him study or take notes with only one arm — he uses paper and pencil. _

_ Now, flashback to last week’s class, when we were talking about political relationships during wartime. This is a big theme throughout the module, and the notes for the class had said we would be covering diplomacy and espionage. Nowhere in the pre-class briefing, or in the required reading for that week was there anything about torture. I mean, absolutely zilch, and I’m super keen and did _ all _ the reading. Zola’s there, at the front, droning on as usual when — without warning — the next slide flashes up and immediately cuts into a video of someone being tortured. I mean, straight up in the middle of our class, a genuine video of waterboarding. _

_ Have you ever seen that shit? I guess some videos have been leaked, or released as propaganda, but I’d never seen it before, and holy shit. It was intense, and it was horrific. And then I hear a commotion a few seats down from me — where this guy, this vet had been sitting. I glance over and he’s pale as anything, the noise I heard? It was his pencil snapping in two. The guy is shaking, and he looks about two seconds away from vomiting. As I watch, transfixed, he stumbles out of his chair, paper and pencil fragments falling to the floor, and staggers up the stairs to the back doors. _

_ The video cuts out just as the doors slam shut behind him, and the noise echoes through the silent lecture theatre. _

_ I don’t think many people noticed, the guy barely made a sound, but I’ll never forget the look on his face in that moment. I wouldn’t dare speculate on whether he’d ever been tortured himself, or just seen the aftermath of it in the war. But any guy who was involved enough to lose an arm, surely saw some heavy shit out there. _

_ Was there a trigger warning on this class? Did Zola take two fucking seconds to warn that the video he was about to show might be distressing? Did he fuck. _

_ The guy didn’t return for the rest of his class and, as I left, I spotted his backpack still stowed away under the seat where he’d been sitting. I thought about moving it, but figured he’d remember where he’d left it, and I didn’t want to fuck with his stuff, during what was bound to be an incredibly shitty day for him. _

_ This guy doesn’t ask for special treatment, he doesn’t make a fuss, and he doesn’t demand trigger warnings. But he sure as shit got fucked over by Professor Zola and his International Relations class. Having a warning before that video wouldn’t have harmed anyone, but it would mean that this guy wouldn’t have been forced to miss the rest of the class, and I’m betting he wasn’t the only one struggling with that video. _

_ I’m not saying we need warnings on everything, and I’m not saying we shouldn’t show potentially upsetting content, but this campus needs to offer an equal platform for learning, and that means catering to all physical and mental disabilities and issues, and not just to those people that shout the loudest. _

Bucky finishes reading and is surprised to find that it’s now dark outside. He hadn’t realised that anyone had noticed — hopes no one else made a note about it, although that’s probably a moot point right about now, since there’s a whole article about it. About him. It doesn’t mention him by name, of course, for which he’s incredibly grateful, but still. He feels like there are worms in his stomach, writhing around and around. What will people think of him once they read this? Will they assume he was tortured, will they whisper about him more, or will they start to avoid him in the corridors, sit a little further away each class. He wishes this girl would have asked for his permission before using him as an example. He doesn’t mind, thinks that if it can help make the university and its classes more inclusive for everyone, then that’s a good thing. It’s just that his body’s already been used so much without his permission, that for someone to use him — even as an example — it leaves him feeling dirty.

It leaves him feeling like he doesn’t belong to himself, and that’s a feeling he’s been fighting so hard for since leaving the army. When you’re in the army, your body belongs to the United States Army. They tell you where to go, and for how long, what to wear, and what you are allowed to bring with you. They tell you how long to sleep for and what to eat and when. Your bodily autonomy is not your own, and for Bucky this feeling was only compounded by the time he spend in captivity. There his body was even less his own — it belonged to his captors, and it was theirs to do with as they wished, there to carve their every whim into. He lost a sense of who he was, and when he came back to U.S. it was a long few months before he even started to remember how to just be _ Bucky, _how to be in control of his own body and his own life. It doesn’t help that sometimes, when his brain is still half asleep, that he forgets he no longer has a left arm, tries to make it move, and experiences that same sense of dissociation when his body is not able to follow his own simple commands. When he tries to move his left arm and fails, his brain forgets that it’s not because he’s tied up; the lack of responsiveness takes him straight back into that godforsaken desert cell. 

New York, however, and NYU, were both areas that he associated with himself, with his own choices and his own mind. To have — even a little bit of — that hard-earned autonomy taken away from him in the place that had finally come to mean control to Bucky, had come to mean _ safe _ and _ normal, _that unsettles him far more than he would have expected. It sits in his chest uncomfortably, and he doesn’t want to be mad at this girl, doesn’t want to be angry towards her, but something’s simmering there and it’s not healthy.

He realises his messages app is flashing with a further reply from Darcy, asking him what he thought of the article, and he doesn’t want to speak to her, doesn’t want to play nice right now. It feels melodramatic to call it this, but it’s a violation, and Bucky is fucking pissed off. He also knows that firstly, Darcy had nothing to do with it, otherwise she would have mentioned it beforehand, and secondly, that the girl who did write the piece meant no ill-will towards Bucky. She could not have predicted Bucky feeling this way, although the irony is that if she had tried to consider things from Bucky’s point of view — much like her writing was imploring students to do on a campus-wide scale, then perhaps she would have been able to guess after all.

Bucky slams his laptop shut and realises he needs to get out of his apartment to stop him stewing on this further, or worse — sending this girl a piece of his mind. The overall message of her piece is _ good _ , Bucky knows that, knows the piece will have a much greater benefit which outweighs his unsettled mind, but that doesn’t make his feelings invalid. He needs to take a moment to just feel angry, to feel used, so he can process it and get it out of his system. He quickly changes into his running gear, shoving on a beanie over his long hair to keep it out of his face, and has barely gone ten paces down the street before the heavens open, soaking him in a cold November rain. It’s utter perfection. The rain is icy needles that beat down upon his skin and it makes him only think of each _ plinkplinkplink, _makes him feel each drop as it hits him. The downpour is extreme, driving the people who have been caught out in to take refuge under awnings and in shop doorways, and Bucky just runs on. He splashes through puddles with the joyful abandon of a child in their first pair of gumboots, splashing the ever-deepening puddles halfway up his legs. 

It isn’t until he’s been staring at a guy running half a block ahead of him for several streets now that he realises why the set of their shoulders seems so familiar. It’s Steve. Or at least, Bucky is about ninety percent sure it’s Steve, which is reason enough for him to pick up the pace, breath coming easily despite the extra exertion, as he pushes to catch up.

“Hey, stranger.”

He sees Steve jump a little out the corner of his eye, and smirks to himself lightly. It’s not always the best idea to surprise a veteran from behind, of course, but Steve’s already turning a wide smile in Bucky’s direction, even as he reaches up a hand to shove against Bucky’s shoulder.

“Didn’t your mother every teach you not to sneak up on people?” Steve asks, only slightly breathless.

“Well hello to you, too.”

He looks over as Steve shakes his head in exasperation, his short hair still managing to send water droplets flying out into the rain. Bucky watches their trajectories, transfixed, as he tries to tracks which droplets belong to Steve, and which to the rain. He loses them almost instantly and wonders if that’s some kind of metaphor.

“Didn’t realise anyone else was crazy enough to be out running in this weather?” Steve’s breathing is labored by the physical effort, but he has no real trouble talking to Bucky.

“Nah, the rain’s the best time to run. Keeps everybody else off the streets for a start.”

By unspoken communication they cross the street and start a loop around a small park. There are trees dotted around, and as they run under the cover of their canopies Bucky enjoys the change in sound as the leafy roof protects them from the rain, even as the droplets play their own symphony on each leaf in turn.

In the muted silence of the park, Bucky feels protected, like he can be more honest with Steve in this moment, that it’s okay to offer more.

“I like the rain,” he says, quietly, voice barely audible over the sounds of their feet pounding the path below, “it reminds me I’m not trapped inside, reminds me I’m free.”

Steve makes a small choking noise, that might be the air catching in his throat, but might be something else, might be an infinitesimal reaction to Bucky’s words. Steve’s right hand seems to twitch, ever so slightly, as if aborting a movement to clasp Bucky on the shoulder, perhaps, to offer some small gesture of comfort. Bucky thinks that maybe he wouldn’t have minded Steve touching him right them, wonders how he might get him to close that gap more readily in the future.

“Come on, I’m only a few blocks from here. You wanna come round?”

Steve looks over at Bucky, delighted by the invite. “I thought you had a paper?”

“I’m basically done. I was just gonna be watching Netflix. Come join me?” The invitation is casual enough that Steve could easily reject it without any drama, his current soaking wet state a ready-made excuse to wriggle out of any obligation without seeming rude. It’s also offered casually because Bucky can’t bear to make a big deal about this. Can’t bear to be shot down if his request was any more obvious, any more earnest. 

“As long as I can borrow something to wear, I’m in.”

And god, Bucky is grinning like a school kid at a fun fair, but it feels so good, the endorphins from the run mixing with the happiness he feels at Steve saying yes. Steve had been given every excuse in the world to back out, would have been completely justified in doing so, but now he is following Bucky down the block towards his apartment, steps in time, breathing in synch, as they finish their run together. The rain is still beating down mercilessly, and Bucky hustles Steve inside the apartment building quickly. He enjoys running in the rain, but standing in it? Not so much. Steve makes a joke about Bucky making him take the stairs, how he can’t believe he lives in such a sub-standard apartment building, when he’d _ clearly _ seen the uppermost luxury that Steve himself lived in, and the joking and teasing between them just feels so easy, so natural, that Bucky can’t help but wonder where were the relationships like this in his life up until now? Or is it that Steve is the one for him, that it’s so easy with Steve because it’s fate, and so of course it feels good?

Bucky lets Steve use the bathroom first before he fills the tub up with a few inches of water and washes himself quickly. He’s still cold by the time that he gets out, so he puts on his warmest fleece pyjamas and an old sweatshirt that had once belonged to his father. He kits Steve out in an Army sweatshirt and a pair of matching sweatpants, joking that Steve looks ready for a P.T. session now, and perhaps he’d like to do another few laps of the block? Steve actually throws a cushion at Bucky for that comment, and Bucky is far too busy laughing to be outraged.

They order pizza and flop down onto the sofa next to each other, close enough so that their thighs are pressed together, but not so close that Bucky feels stifled or trapped. He knows that half of Steve’s consideration is probably down to him having similar issues, from Steve struggling with connecting with people back on U.S. soil in the same way that Bucky does, but he also knows that in part it’s due to Steve always taking a moment to think about things from another person’s perspective, from Bucky perspective. Steve doesn’t crowd Bucky because he knows that will make Bucky uncomfortable, and he wonders how the hell Steve Rogers became such an expert in reading Bucky Barnes in such a short space of time. 

He wonders if it’s too soon to kiss him again, to run his fingers through that soft blond hair. If they start kissing before pizza, is that such a bad thing? Bucky decides that it would in fact be a very nice thing, and he shifts subtly in his seat, trying to twist his body round to face Steve without being massively awkward about it. Of course, this proves nearly impossible. The weight of the two men is sagging the couch cushions backwards, and without a left arm to prop himself up on, it’s basically impossible to Bucky to shuffle round to his left where Steve is sitting. Steve notices immediately.

“You okay there?”

God, it’s not even patronising, which makes it even worse, Steve sounds genuinely concerned.

“Fuck you, Rogers.” And shit, if Bucky swears at him while he’s just trying to be nice, well then Steve isn’t going to stick around for long, that’s for sure. Bucky sighs, and sinks back into the sofa. “I was trying to kiss you.” He can feel his cheeks flaming red at the admission, and closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at Steve’s reaction.

“Mmm.”

Is that a good mmm or a bad mmm? God damn Steve, he needs to enunciate!

Bucky feels Steve shifting around on the sofa, and assumes that he must be getting up to leave.

“Like this?” He hears, and then Steve’s lips are pressing softly against his own. 

It is precisely as good as Bucky remembers from yesterday. It might even be better. Bucky can smell Steve all around him, can taste him on his tongue, he's filling up all of his senses and it's oh so glorious. Steve is pushing him back into the sofa, crowding him and he finds he doesn't mind in the slightest, he wants to be held down by Steve, doesn't want to get away. Steve hasn’t shaved since yesterday, and the stubble is rough under Bucky’s lips. He should probably be annoyed, but he likes the small contrast between pleasure and pain, like how the day’s growth looks on Steve. Bucky tentatively lifts up his hand but, instead of running his fingertips across that stubble, he reaches up under Steve’s borrowed sweatshirt, resting his cold fingers on the warm skin he finds underneath. 

Steve jumps back immediately, and for a moment Bucky thinks he’s overstepped his bounds, before, “Jesus, your fingers are freezing!”

Bucky laughs. He’s still cold from the icy rain earlier, his inches-deep bath not enough to warm up his skin, and he burrows his cold nose into Steve’s neck in response. He’s delighted when Steve doesn’t pull away, but wraps his arms around Bucky instead, enveloping him in his heat. It feels amazing, and Bucky would almost say he liked this more than the kissing. Almost. He starts pressing small kisses into the bare skin of Steve’s neck, intrigued by the noises that Steve makes in response. He hasn’t got time now to explore all the different noises Steve can make, and which areas provide the most interesting noises, but it’s a start. His exploration is interrupted by a sharp knock at the door — the pizzas are here.

Once they’re settled back on the sofa — one large pizza each, they’re both growing men after all — they end up talking about anything and everything. It’s nothing too deep, nothing about the war, or the burdens they brought back with them. It’s just about stupid stuff, all the things that make them who they are in the smallest ways. Bucky tells Steve his favorite book is Catch 22, and Steve counters with The Hobbit. And really Steve, Captain America’s favorite book is written by some dead English guy? Steve calls Bucky cliché, of course his favourite book would be Catch-22, he probably fancied himself as some kind of Yossarian, but that actually, he understands why Bucky would find a lot of resonance with that novel, especially now.

Bucky wonders how the hell Steve Rogers can see under his skin so well. He’d first read Catch-22 as a teenager, but he’d re-read it last year after he’d been discharged, and he’d been amazed at how much of what he read in those pages rang true to his own experiences. He wonders if that first read had unknowing colored his consciousness over the years, wonders where the divide between fact and fiction truly lies. When he can get into it, he likes fiction because it takes him outside of himself, outside of his own world — that’s why he likes sci-fi more than anything nowadays. So it’s curious that his favorite book is one that dovetails so closely with his own life. He wonders what that says about him.

“Favorite film?” Bucky’s mouth is still half-full with pizza when he talks, but he doesn’t care. They’re sprawled across the sofa in sweatpants, it’s not like they need table manners right now.

“Casablanca.”

Bucky just stares at Steve.

“What?” Steve asks, looking over at Bucky. “What’s wrong with Casablanca?”

“What’s wrong— Jesus Steve, are you ninety?”

“Hey, it’s a classic! What’s your favorite then, huh?”

Bucky hesitates. Steve is definitely going to laugh at him. 

“Probably Labyrinth.” At Steve’s blank look, he continues, “you know, David Bowie, with the puppets, and—“ That movie had probably been his sexual awakening, when he finally realised why he liked watching the football team play so much, and it wasn’t for a deep love of the gameplay.

“David Bowie’s mullet, and those tight purple trousers! Yes!” Steve is laughing. “I can’t believe that’s your favorite movie.” His laugh isn’t malicious though, it’s not making fun of Bucky, if anything it’s just full of delight at learning these little tidbits of information, shared out like precious gems, or small crumbs scavenged from under a busy table. Bucky’s never had anyone hoard information about him the way that Steve does, the way he collects the facts like they’re the most interesting thing in the world, things to be treasured and revered. It makes him feel breathless, makes his palm ache with the pressure of resisting touching Steve, of reaching out and running his fingers across that stubble on his jaw. He wonders if Steve will shave it in the morning, or if he’ll keep letting it grow, how it will feel when it’s soft and long under Bucky’s fingertips.

Ever since he lost his arm, leaving him with only five fingers, Bucky has developed an increased appreciation for the sensation of touch, enjoys the sensual journey his hand can travel throughout any given day. Steve Rogers is brand new terrain, a landscape that needs to be mapped and explored as thoroughly as any other physical topography. Bucky needs to create a cartography of Steve Rogers with his mind and his fingers, but he wonders how long it will take. Days? Months? Years? Will he get the chance? Already it feels like they are teetering on the edge of something momentous, or maybe they have been ever since the day that Steve rescued Bucky from that bleak and dirty cell, from the cell that Bucky had been certain he would die in, those rough stone walls the last thing he would ever see. He thinks if only he can keep kissing Steve then all these questions will be answered, and Bucky will know, he’ll know, who he is, who Steve is, and what the universe has in store for them.

Or is the fact that Steve and Bucky are sitting here, the two of them wrung out by the same war, a testament to the fact that fate doesn’t exist? That they’ve engineered their own destiny, Bucky by never giving up, not then and not now, and somehow Steve doing the same. Not giving up on a stranger, a man whose name he didn’t even know. It is merely testament to their stubbornness that after all that, of course they would end up together, two stars orbiting the same sun. But the sun is also a star, so Bucky wonders how that analogy really works — are they planets, does one of them have a gravity greater than the other? Will Steve suck him in closer and closer like a black hole devouring Bucky’s own orbit until he isn’t himself any longer?

He thinks no. He thinks that maybe a man like Brock, he would do that to Bucky, he would be that black hole destroying everything and leaving only nothingness behind. But Steve, Steve is a good man, and he is not destruction. Bucky can read that in the way that Steve’s fingers tremble slightly as they reach up to cup Bucky’s jaw, as if he can’t quite believe that he’s doing this, that he’s allowed to do this. It’s the same feeling that Bucky gets when he presses his lips against Steve's, amazed that he’s not dreaming. Steve shines so brightly that maybe he’s the sun in this analogy. He goes in to kiss Steve again, thinks that he really could get lost in him, but that Steve wouldn’t let him, and so he’s safe. He’s safe here with Steve, and he might just be safe falling in love with Steve as well.

And _ wow _ . Where did that thought come from? He met Steve _ this week, _and he’s already thinking of a whole future for them, but maybe it’s the only thing that’s made sense in Bucky’s jumbled mind in a long, long time. That Steve is Captain America, who dragged Bucky out of hell, but didn’t save him, because Bucky’s had to save himself, has been saving himself every single day since. Saving himself from the blackness that threatens to overwhelm him, the negativity, and the pure exhaustion of the battle he fights every single day, a constant war to replace the one he thought he’d escaped. 

It’s comforting, though, to meet Steve only properly now, after Bucky’s managed to get his head screwed on somewhat straight. Both of them, indeed, have taken time to heal and grow, within themselves. Bucky wonders what would have happened if they’d perhaps awoken in adjacent hospital beds, if Bucky had met the injured Steve as he himself lay in a hospital bed, struggling to come to terms with the loss of his arm. Those first few months especially were a black time for Bucky, and he wonders if he and Steve would have been able to build anything strong, anything positive, during that time, or if Bucky would have been the black hole, the hurricane that destroyed everything. He doesn’t think they would have survived that, thanks whatever deities were in power the day that both he and Steve Rogers survived that war, but did not wake up side by side. Instead, they woke up thousands of miles apart, but with the small thread of hope already connecting them together, a thread that said we can survive and we will survive very quietly into the darkness that threatened to engulf them both.

Bucky knows that Steve must have issues of his own, had seen it in the dark last night as they had sat on the sidewalk and pretended they were normal, but that’s okay. If Bucky’s learnt anything in the last two years it’s that normal — if it even exists — is overrated, and unnecessary. Yes, Bucky carries the weight of the war on his shoulders every single day. Somedays that weight threatens to overwhelm him, to drown him even though the bathtub is only filled with water a few inches deep. On other days though, it gives him strength to know that he’s survived it, that he’s still surviving it, and fighting it, and that he won’t let it be the only thing that defines him. Bucky is a million and one things all at once, some of them contradictory, but even at his worst, he is always so much more than _ injured vet, _just like Steve is too. His injuries are even less visible than Bucky’s, but no less serious for it. 

So here they are now on Bucky’s ratty sofa, in his shitty apartment in New York. It’s not Brooklyn, but it’s still home, and the warm skin of Steve’s torso might just be Bucky’s new favorite thing. They’re not in love yet, because they only just met for the first time, the real time, when they’re both themselves and both whole, although some may not see that, may call them broken. Bucky is learning not to think that about himself, is trying not to use words like not-normal, or broken, damaged, or lacking in some ways. He will not be defined by his lack of arm, but by all the other things that people are judged by. His grades, maybe, or how shitty his jokes are. 

Right now, Bucky Barnes enjoys kissing Steve Rogers and thinks about every road that brought them to this point, and all the possibilities of the future which are stretched out in front of them. Possibility, he likes that. Nothing is set in stone, but he likes the possibility of waking up to Steve in the mornings, the possibility of growing old with this man, of being in love and maybe not saving each other, because neither of them need to be saved, not anymore. It won’t be easy, Bucky knows, but he’s never allowed himself something like this before, never even allowed himself the possibility of hope, and it finally feels good to just let that fear, let that anxiety go.

Steve stays, that night. The rain is still pouring down outside, and even after Nat comes home and joins them on the sofa, they are content. Happy to sit there talking about anything and everything, and it’s nothing, but it’s also something. When they crawl into bed later, Steve still wearing the sweatpants that he’s borrowed from Bucky, they don’t do anything. They curl around each other like two question marks, a question that Bucky finally feels like he knows the answer to. And it’s this, this very moment right here, with a man he’s only just met, but with whom his own destiny has been tied so inextricably, that tells Bucky maybe they are the same now, doubled-up to make the thread strong and firm, less likely to break.

Steve’s not at the VA meeting when he gets there the next evening, and Bucky tries his best not to be disappointed. 

He says hi to Clint and Sam, before making his customary cup of sweet coffee and edging along one of the rows to sit by himself. The noise of the room filling up washes over him, and he finds that he likes the rhythm of this life he’s building, that he likes this place, these people. It’s more than he ever imagined could be possible that first VA meeting back in Brooklyn. But he recognises now that he wasn’t ready for it. He had been too raw, everything had been too fresh, like the fresh pink skin after a burn, too shiny to seem real.

He feels real now. He feels real, and solid, aware of himself and his body like he hasn’t been in years. He wonders how much that has to do with Steve. To the bond that they’ve already built. Of soft touches and human closeness that has nothing to do with pain. He wonders if this is why the article in the student paper rankled him so much. He’d talked to Steve about it last night, had been able to articulate what it was that had upset him, and he thinks that maybe, maybe he’s ready to speak here, tonight, as well.

He listens to Sam give his usual introduction to the group, and he mentions Veteran’s Day again, mentions what they can and can’t control. And that’s it, it was out of Bucky’s control. But this isn’t, sharing his story isn’t. He stands up.

Sam looks over at him in obvious surprise. Bucky’s been coming here for over two months now, and not once has he tried to speak before. Sam gives him a smile and an encouraging nod, so Bucky speaks.

“Hi. I’m Bucky, for those who don’t know me. Infantry, six tours.” He pauses, not sure of what he’s going to say next. “I guess, I’ve been thinking a lot about what Sam said the other day. About how we can’t control what other people think of us, only how we view ourselves. And these past two years since I came home have been about learning who I am, now, who I am after what happened to me.

“If you’re at NYU, you might have read a story about me in the student paper this week. I was in a lecture, when a video of someone being waterboarded triggered a flashback for me.” He pauses again, takes a deep breath. It feels easier, knowing that Steve heard similar words to these last night, that he reacted only with kindness, with understanding.

“I was held captive in Afghanistan. I was held captive for three months, and during that time I was waterboarded, amongst many other things. Too many things. And the thing is. That lecturer _ shouldn’t _ have shown that video without a warning, so I get it. The girl who wrote that article was doing a good thing complaining about that, but I’m still angry.

“I’m angry.” It feels good to say it out loud, and he can see Sam nodding in his peripheral vision. Sam gets it, already. “I’m angry because for so long, my body wasn’t mine. It belonged to the United States Army, it belonged to my captors. And still now, there are times when I’m not in control. When the PTSD takes over, my body is not my own. But I’m trying. I’m trying to be in control, whenever and wherever I can. To be aware of myself, and yes, how things are different now. I’m learning how to cope with what I’ve got. And so—“ this is the part, where he doesn’t want to sound like an ass, but— “that girl _ used me. _ She used me without my consent. She used my body, my pain, my PTSD to further her agenda. And it’s a good agenda! I agree with it. But she didn’t _ ask _ me.

“My body is mine, and so is my pain, and so is my PTSD. And I have to deal with all those things, and I’m starting to learn that it’s okay, that I’ll be okay. But she doesn’t get to use me like that, and it isn’t right.”

He pauses again, not sure if he’s said everything he wants to, before he nods finally and takes his seat again.

Sam is already standing up, nodding as he does so.

“Thank you for sharing Bucky, and you raise an excellent point there. It’s one thing to be thanked for our service, even if it makes us uncomfortable, but it’s another for people to _ use _ our service for their own aims.”

Sam keeps talking, segueing into how politicians are using their struggles more and more to further their own political agendas, their petty squabbles. Bucky lets Sam’s strong, clear voice wash over him and keeps breathing evenly. That wasn’t…bad. He had shared some of his story, and the world hadn’t come crashing down on top of him. A quick glance around the room, now, shows that no one is even looking at him, all eyes trained on Sam as he speaks, and that eases what remains of Bucky’s tension. 

It’s okay that he’s angry about this. But he doesn’t need to hold onto it either. Sharing it means Bucky can let go of it now, that he doesn’t need to think about it. 

Bucky sees Steve again on Monday. They go out to the movies together, and it’s a standard date, the kind of thing Bucky wishes he could have gone on when he was in high school, but he wasn’t brave enough, or honest enough to take the chance. They’re planning to see some stupid comedy, because Bucky still doesn’t deal too well with unexpected loud noises, and the surround sound in the cinema can freak him out, especially if it’s an action movie. It’s meant to be something fun, something light-hearted. But the guy behind them in the queue for tickets starts pushing in front of them as they reach the counter, and Bucky’s just about to call him out, the _ hey pal, there’s a line _that’s on the tip of his tongue, before the guy is telling the cashier that he wants to buy the tickets for both Steve and Bucky.

“I want to thank you for your service, on Veteran’s Day.” He’s wearing a cap and an obnoxious goatee and Bucky’s judging by appearance — yes — but this guy looks like the type who would boast about going through the marines selection or something, when it turns out he biffed out with a fake injury on day three, and now likes to stockpile guns in his home and stress how much of a proud American he is. Bucky had completely forgotten it was Veteran’s Day and, by the look on his face, Steve had completely forgotten too. And Bucky gets it, he does, he understands that many regular American citizens recognise the sacrifice that those in the military might have made to serve their country, and that they want to express their thanks. At the same time though, being in the military was just his job, like any other, and maybe accepting those thanks is a part of the job, but it makes Bucky so uncomfortable, makes him feel like his missing arm is a great flashing beacon. He doesn’t want to be noticed, he just wants to go on a date with this man who may or may not be his boyfriend by now, Bucky isn’t sure when it’s too soon to start using that word but—

Steve steps in. “Thank you sir, but we can’t accept your offer.” 

The guy is already protesting, asking them what film they’re watching, and Bucky wants the ground to open up and swallow him whole. He doesn’t want to be recognisable as a vet in public, and he wonders what else gave them away. If the silhouettes of two strong men standing next to each other, one abruptly cut off on the left-hand side, was clue enough. Bucky’s ashamed — not of his service — but of the things he’s seen, and of how he let his team down, his unit, his brothers. He doesn’t want to be thanked for that, can’t bear to see the thanks in a stranger’s eyes when he still can’t face the families of his men.

“Really, sir, I just want to take my boyfriend on a date — it wouldn’t be proper to let another man buy his ticket now.”

And oh, god. Steve has absolutely perfected the earnest-yet-sincere rebuke. And he is also a little shit, who knows exactly how this man is going to respond.

Bucky is not disappointed when the man’s face gives an uncomfortable spasm, mouth twisting up like he’s just taken a bite out of a lemon. Ha. Serves him right. The guy’s mouth opens and closes a few times in silence as he mind tries to process _ soldier-good, gay-bad _ , and is unable to reconcile the two things into an acceptable conclusion. Bucky has to bring his hand up to his mouth and fake a cough in order to hide his delighted smile. This is a _ great _ date. It’s not until they’re sat in the dark as the movie starts that Bucky really registers what Steve had said. _ Boyfriend. _Huh. He guesses they are using that word after all.

He wonders if maybe it sounds a bit juvenile, but then again, _ he’s never had this before. _ He’s never had someone’s hand to hold in the dark of the cinema, to fight over popcorn with, to call his boyfriend. And god, Steve hasn’t shaved since last week, and has grown a full beard by this point and it is _ doing things _ to Bucky. That man is so damn attractive, his face is so fucking attractive, and Bucky gets a little hot just by looking at Steve, looking at his boyfriend. He likes the sound of that, and he reaches over in the dark to lace his fingers together with Steve’s, and wonders about this too. Steve’s hearing loss is in his right ear, Bucky missing arm on the left. They slot together perfectly, good arm to good ear, allowing Bucky to lean over and whisper stupid things in Steve’s ear and it feels like maybe this makes up for all the dates he might have missed out on as a teenager. He wouldn’t want to be sitting here with anyone else, and that thought is completely fucking terrifying since it’s been less than two weeks, but also it feels right. Bucky doesn’t believe in destiny or any of that shit, but he might be starting to believe in love at first sight, in belonging to someone in a huge, cosmic way.

Bucky takes Steve home for Thanksgiving a few weeks later. Steve doesn’t have any family left, apart from an aunt in New Jersey who he normally spends Christmas with. Bucky is disappointed to hear that Steve has already confirmed those Christmas plans with Aunt Mary and is already planning to steal Steve away for Christmas next year. He doesn’t tell his mom who he’s bringing home, only that he’s bringing a date, and when Becca finds out she rings him almost immediately.

“Mom says you’re bringing a date to Thanksgiving.”

It’s not a question so Bucky just lets his sister hang there, refusing to offer her any information. It’s not that he doesn’t want to tell her, but it’s kind of fun to make her work for it, feels carefree in a way that Bucky strives for but fails to find so often. 

“And?”

“She said _ you said _ it was specifically a date. So that rules Nat out, unless I’ve really missed something there.” Becca and Nat have met several times, and they got on far too well for Bucky’s liking. Best to keep them separate as much as possible, lest they form some sort of permanent alliance. 

“It’s not Nat,” is all that Bucky offers her. He’s enjoying this.

“So who is it?” Becca barks down the phone. “Come on Bucky, tell me.” She drags the words out like a preschooler, and it makes Bucky smile even more.

“Who are you bringing?” he asks innocently. 

“Don’t change the subject on me, James! Who are you bringing? A boyfriend?” There. Becca’s said it now, the thing they don’t talk about not because Bucky’s ashamed, he’s never really been ashamed, but because he had to hide it for so long that it just became second nature to him, became the thing he _ had _ to hide merely in order to be himself.

Bucky takes a deep breath. “Yes.” And that’s all he says, all he needs to because then Becca is squealing down the phone in a pitch that he’s pretty sure only dogs can hear.

“Bucky! Who is he? What’s his name? How long how you been dating? Why were you keeping this a secret from me! Come on, spill!”

Bucky can hardly keep up with all of Becca’s questions, but in the hope that it might make her shut up, and also because he doesn’t want Steve to be ambushed either, he relents. 

“His name is Steve. He’s a vet as well, so do not scream like that in front of him, please, for both of our sakes.” He doesn’t mention that Steve wouldn’t be able to hear her in one ear anyway, doesn’t want to encourage her.

Becca’s soft “oh” is almost lost in the fuzz of the phone line, and the silence sits between them for a second. “I look forward to meeting him then, B.”

“I’ll see you on Thursday. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

He wonders then how long before he says those words to Steve, but it turns out Steve gets there first.

It’s two months before they finally have sex, in the middle of December, when the first snow of winter falls in NYC, and Steve and Bucky stay in bed instead of going for their morning run, finding an alternative form of exercise to occupy themselves with instead. They’re still sleep-warm, blankets drawn up to their shoulders to keep the chill in the air out, but their legs and bodies are intertwined, Bucky’s head resting on Steve’s shoulder, his long hair messy around his head and tickling Steve’s nose. And Steve just says it, right there and then. The low morning light creeping round the curtains, and the silence of a soft Sunday morning all around them. _ I love you, _ he says, so simply, and presses a kiss into Bucky’s hair and inexplicably he finds tears forming in his eyes, before he realises that he doesn’t feel like he doesn’t deserve this. He feels worthy of Steve’s love, like he deserves to be loved, like he’s allowed it and he has to take a few deep breaths to steady himself before he says the same in return. 

Their kissing gets heated after that, and they quickly lose the minimal amount of clothing they were already wearing. Bucky finds himself completely overwhelmed by a naked Steve Rogers, laid out underneath him. He revels in the feel of the shrapnel wounds on Steve’s side, knows that although Steve feels little pain from them now, the look in his eyes tell Bucky that the attention he gives to those scars is not lost on Steve. Bucky thinks this might just be a miracle, that they both survived, two boys from Brooklyn, to end up here, in bed together years later, whole enough that they can grow together, rather than tearing each other apart with grief and trauma. Steve’s skin under his hand and mouth is every bit as glorious as Bucky had dreamed, and he learns its topography with tongue, teeth and fingertips. He thinks that actually, it will take a lifetime to learn every inch of Steve’s skin by heart, and that’s a lifetime that he’s willing to spend. He thinks that he might just deserve nice things after all, but that maybe Steve Rogers is the nicest thing of all.

When months pass and everything still feels good between them, Bucky finally stops feeling like he’s walking on a tightrope, like the rope is about to snap. He feels secure, like the can trust this won’t disappear at a moment’s notice. That’s until he misses Steve’s birthday, and he thinks _ this is it, _this is the thing that will turn Steve against him, this will be the act that’s unforgivable. Bright, earnest, Steve Rogers, whose soul is probably painted gold, and who will help old ladies cross the street but still has a wicked side to him in the way he smiles at Bucky. And Bucky, Bucky has let him down.

It’s Steve’s 35th birthday and he’s throwing a big party to celebrate. He’d still been enlisted when he’d turned thirty, and had been deployed at the time, so this is meant to make up for many years of missed birthdays and missed celebrations. Bucky had promised Steve he wouldn’t be late, had promised him even that he’d bee there early to help Steve set up. He’s rented a country house upstate, so there’s a pool terrace, and lots of space for food, and dancing and although there will be drinks, Bucky knows that Steve won’t be drinking and no one will be pressuring either of them to join in. Nat will be there, so will Clint and Sam, and it’s going to be a great evening. But Bucky’s just stepping out of his apartment building and onto the sidewalk when he hears the first bang and _ fuck. _ He lunges back into the apartment block, diving for the floor, arm up over his head to protect it from shrapnel. Why the hell isn’t he wearing a helmet? _ Fuckfuckfuck. _The bangs keep on coming and he manages to get up off the floor and run up back to his apartment. Hopefully he’ll be safe in there. It’s not until he’s fumbling his key into the lock, hands shaking, that he realises what the noise was. It’s fireworks. It’s the 4th of July and people are setting off fireworks.

It’s too late for Bucky’s PTSD-riddled brain though. The noise is too insipid, too similar and he can’t break out of the spiral where his mind hears _ bombs _ and _ gunfire, _where other people would only hear celebration. Just when he thinks it might be safe to head out — surely he can make it to Steve — another barrage will go off and he’s left cowering in the corner, back pressed up tight against the wall and knees drawn up to his chest, making himself as small as possible. He can’t even be normal enough for one fucking day to make it to his own boyfriend’s birthday, and surely this is it, surely this is the last straw. Steve will realise how broken Bucky is, how he’s wasted his time on this damaged and pathetic waste of space. Steve could have anyone he wanted, there’s absolutely no reason for him to be shackled to Bucky, to be shackled to this mess that he is.

He’s been crying for hours, his tears all run dry, but his eyes are still a red, bloodshot mess when he hears a noise from outside the apartment door. He thinks that maybe it’s Nat, coming home from the party, but it’s already far too early, in fact, it should only just have started, and it’s easily two hours away, especially through New York traffic. And then Steve bursts through the door. He’d kept the facial hair he’d started growing out last winter, and now it’s this glorious rich beard that makes his stupid face even more attractive. He’s started to grow his hair out too, not as long as Bucky’s, but far longer than military regulations. Not that Special Forces were actually forced to adhere to those, in fact they were often encouraged to eschew many military customs in order not to single themselves out in public, or on the job. But now Steve’s hair is a mess, hanging across his forehead as he storms into the room.

“Bucky, where the fuck are you?” he shouts, and Bucky cowers back further. This is it.

Bucky is peeking up at Steve through the curtain of his hair, trying not to draw attention to himself, but wanting to get one last look at Steve all the same. He looks incredibly handsome in a navy blue shirt and tailored slacks. Bucky wants to kiss him, and it’s the first thought he’s had in hours that hasn’t been tinged with thoughts of fire, sand, and death. He notices the moment Steve clocks him on the floor, sees the shift in his expression at that exact moment and that’s when he realises. When he sees Steve Rogers’ heartbreak, plain as day across his face, that’s when Bucky knows this is the real deal, that they’re in this forever. He’s going to marry this man.

Steve approaches Bucky slowly, dropping down on his knees and offering his hands up towards Bucky, palms open and steady.

“Buck?”

Bucky nods his head, struggling to find his voice after hours of silence.

“Fireworks. The firewo—“ He can’t get anything else out before his words are broken off with a choked sob. They had sounded so much like war. 

“Oh Bucky.” And then Steve’s arms are wrapping themselves around Bucky’s shoulders, and he has to pull away from the wall slightly in order to allow himself to be fully enveloped by Steve’s strong embrace, but he finds that he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t mind because he knows that Steve will always protect him, will always be watching his six no matter what, and he just lets himself fall apart in Steve’s arms. He lets himself feel all the emotions, and the fear, and the adrenaline of the last few hours as Steve just holds him and whispers nonsense words into his ears. 

* * *

God, it’s far from perfect, but Steve is strong when he is weak, and Steve is calm when he is lost. Sometimes, they fight, they get angry and feel cornered and lash out at each other. But it’s also always Steve’s touch that brings Bucky back, just like that very first night in the bar, it’s Steve’s strong, guiding hands that show Bucky the way even when he’s so lost inside his own head, his own memories, that he can’t see for himself. He does the same for Steve as well, is able to offer him that, and it makes Bucky feel important, it makes him feel like a good person, even after everything. It makes him feel like maybe he can forgive himself. 

Under the exterior of an American hero, Bucky knows this: here is a man who laughs with his whole body, who sleeps with the curtains open so the dark doesn’t disorientate him, whose hands are strong but whose touch is gentle. Who looks at Bucky like he’s brightest star in the night sky, while Bucky knows all along that Steve is the sun, and will always outshine him. Here is someone who Bucky doesn’t need to open his eyes to see, can understand even in the darkest of moments that engulf him sometimes, who Bucky will find again and again, like the pull of gravity deep in his stomach. Steve Rogers is his sun, his gravity, his universe, and Bucky is the black, fathomless space that lies between. But they fit together in that way, because Steve has his own darkness too, has those moments when he can’t shine, when the night takes him and overwhelms him. In those moments Bucky will share himself with Steve, a pinprick of light within infinity, one bright and unwavering hope that Steve can hold on to. Much as Bucky holds onto himself in those moments when he’s lost, when he holds on tight to the core of himself to stop from shaking apart. It is a soft hope, a cautious hope, that Bucky offers, but it’s the most he can give, the most he’s been able to salvage, and he finds that it’s enough, just about, to share between himself and Steve Rogers.

And so, the time for heroes is past, as the time for war is past. These men will both still fight a war with themselves, everyday, as they struggle to carry the gifts of war with them — the gifts of pain, of trauma, of lingering nightmares and cold sweats and sleepless nights. In between those battles, they will love each other though, and they will help the other carry the burden when it gets too heavy, or they feel too weak, they will carry their burdens between them, and they will learn how to heal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this story was only ever meant to be about them finding each other, and not about what happens once they start to build a life together. Although clearly I couldn’t resist a bit because I'm a sentimental sap. My head canons post-fic include Sam being reunited with his soulmateᵀᴹ (and hence why I couldn’t ship him with Riley, coz he dead like); Bucky nailing it at this college lark (and Zola getting fired); tired doctor!Clint; and Natasha probably still being an actual spy.
> 
> All the random one-off OC names in this fic are stolen from my actual friends, apart from one friend who is actually in the army so would have been perfect for one of the random military personnel mentioned. Except he is literally called Captain Kirk, and this ain’t Starfleet. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please leave a comment or kudos :D and come talk to us on [artist: twitter](https://twitter.com/BuckyBabyboy) or [author: tumblr!](http://iameverywhere.tumblr.com)


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